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SOCIAL ASPECTS OF CATHOLICISM 
 
 AND PROTESTANTISM. 
 
SOCIAL ASPECTS OF CATHOLICISM 
 AND PROTESTANTISM 
 
 I 
 
 IN THEIR CIVIL BEARING UPON NATIONS, 
 
 TRANSLATED AND ADAP'J'ED FROM THE FRENCH OF 
 M. LE BARON DE HAULLEVILLE. 
 
 BY 
 
 HENRY BELLINGHAM, M.A., M.P. 
 
 BARRISTER-AT-LAW. 
 WITH A PREFACE BY 
 
 HIS EMINENCE CARDINAL MANNING, 
 
 ARCHBISHOP OF WESTiMINSTER. 
 
 SECOND EDITION. 
 
 LONDON : 
 C. KEGAN PAUL & CO., i PATERNOSTER SQUARE. 
 
 1880. 
 
{The rights of translation and of reproduction are reserved.) 
 
AUTHORITIES CITED. 
 
 Lord Macaulay. 
 Saturday Revie\v. 
 Hergenrother. 
 
 OUINET. 
 
 Vacherot. 
 Eugene Sue. 
 Cardinal Wiseman. 
 Very Rev. Dr. Newman. 
 
 MiCHELET. 
 
 Professor Poullet (Louvain). 
 
 Burke. 
 
 Lecky. 
 
 M. de Lavergne. 
 
 Hepworth Dixon. 
 
 Cardinal Manning. 
 
 Ranke. « 
 
 M. John Lemoine. 
 
 Bergier. 
 
 Bayle. 
 
 Beza. 
 
 Rev. Dr. Leland. 
 
vi Authorities Cited, 
 
 Bishop Milner. 
 
 De Brandt. 
 
 Collier. 
 
 Stow. 
 
 Neal. 
 
 Penn. 
 
 Froude. 
 
 Hallam. 
 
 Prendergast. 
 
 Blackstone. 
 
 Grattan. 
 
 Freeman. 
 
 Menzel. 
 
 Laing. 
 
 LiNGARD. 
 COBBETT. 
 GUIZOT. 
 
 M. Prevost Paradol. 
 
 Rev. S. R. Maitland, Librarian to Archbishop 
 
 of Canterbury. 
 Bayard Taylor. 
 
 Dr. Forbes, Physician to Her Majesty. 
 Geijer. 
 molesworth. 
 Barthold. 
 Allen. 
 Carlyle. 
 Niebuhr. 
 Bishop Burnet. 
 Montesquieu. 
 
 INGLIS. 
 
 M. DE Tocqueville. 
 M. X. Marmier. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 HE following pages contain a copious 
 array of facts and arguments to refute 
 the shallow but plausible fallacy against 
 the Catholic faith derived from an alleged 
 superiority in civilization attained by non-Catholic 
 countries. This fallacy is plausible because it appeals 
 to the lower and worldly notions of the day as to the 
 nature of civilization. It is shallow, because it merely 
 touches on the outside of the question. Nevertheless- 
 it has been repeated incessantly in this century, but 
 chiefly in this country ; and it belongs by especial 
 right to the school of political economists, who for 
 nearly a century have reduced all questions of civili- 
 zation and progress to production, wealth, material 
 development, which are supposed to constitute human 
 progress. 
 
viii Preface. 
 
 The following facts are either studiously ignored or 
 tacitly denied by this school of reasoners : — 
 
 1. That the highest standard of material progress 
 ever known before the action of Christianity upon the 
 world was that of Greece and of Rome. But neither 
 Greece nor Rome can bear comparison with the moral 
 progress of the Hebrew Commonwealth. 
 
 2. That the civilization of both Greece and Rome, in 
 their legislation, their administration of justice, their 
 public and their private morals, can bear no com- 
 parison with the laws, tribunals, patriotism, and do- 
 mestic life of the Jewish people. 
 
 3. That the moral condition of Greece and Rome, 
 both in their public and private life, exhibits a corrup- 
 tion so universal and so intense as to demonstrate the 
 insufficiency of the lights and the laws of the natural 
 ■order to create and to sustain the civilization of the 
 human race. 
 
 4. That the civilization of which we are the offspring 
 is not the civilization of the old Greek or Roman 
 world, which was swept away before the germs of the 
 ■civilization of Europe were planted. 
 
 5. That the civilization of Europe is the creation of 
 Christianity ; that the germs of our civilization are — 
 (i) the Christian household created by the Sacrament 
 
Pi^eface. ix 
 
 of Christian marriage; (2) the Christian people formed 
 by Christian education ; and (3) the Christian State 
 elevated by the higher law of Christian morals. 
 
 6. That the highest civilization, therefore, has a 
 twofold foundation, material and, moral, and a two- 
 fold progress, likewise both material and moral. 
 
 7. That the material foundation and progress which 
 consists in the action and development of the reason 
 and skill of men in arts, science, industry, wealth, and 
 natural prosperity, as it existed before the moral foun- 
 dation of a higher life and law was laid, so it may for 
 a time survive the loss of that higher life. Great eco- 
 nomical and material prosperity may be found, at 
 least for a time, when the moral life of a people is de- 
 clining, or even low. Material progress will continue 
 after the moral progress has been checked, at least 
 long enough to afford a plausible argument in favour 
 of a non-Catholic as against a Catholic people, a pro- 
 vince or a canton. 
 
 Such is, in fact, the fallacy of M. de Laveleye and 
 his followers ; and such is the argument which for a 
 century has perplexed and deceived many minds. 
 
 The Baron de Haulleville has done good service, 
 therefore, in treating of the future of Catholic nations. 
 As Lord Bacon says, " Time destroys the fictions of 
 
Preface. 
 
 men, but confirms the judgments of truth." Given 
 time enough, and we see that the greatest material 
 prosperity, unless supported by a higher principle, 
 cannot endure ; it carries in itself the principle of its 
 own dissolution. Germany and France are direct ex- 
 amples of this truth. Mediaeval Germany was a crea- 
 tion of Christianity. Modern Germany, since Luther, 
 is already divided against itself. The northern half, 
 which Comte placed as the lowest in the scale of 
 European civilization, is precisely that half which has 
 forfeited its Christianity. The southern half still lives 
 on by the principle of its own creation. The material 
 progress of France is greater than that of any country, 
 except our own. It is checked and endangered only 
 in the measure of the decline of its moral progress ; 
 and its moral progress is checked only in the measure 
 in which the infidel revolution of the last eighty years 
 has checked it. 
 
 The master fallacy of the arch-impostor is the asser- 
 tion that Christianity — that is, the Catholic faith and the 
 Catholic Church — are the obstacles to civilization and 
 progress. Christianity, as the chaos and corruption 
 of the Greek and Roman world demonstrate, and as 
 modern Europe shows, is the productive and the sus- 
 taining principle of all civilization, and of all progress 
 
Preface. xi 
 
 in the higher culture of men and of nations. All 
 things are preserved by the permanent action of the 
 principle from which they spring. Christendom, or 
 modern Europe, with all its civilization of national 
 and international law, and with all the purities and 
 sanctities of its domestic and private life, is the off- 
 spring of the Christian faith and of the Christian 
 Church. European civilization will survive while it 
 is Christian. If it ever cease to be Christian it will 
 die out — not all at once, but stealthily, steadily, 
 surely, under a fair countenance of seeming health. 
 Its material progress will for a generation or two 
 deceive many, till its moral progress has been turned 
 backward, and its material progress has issued in 
 the return of the Iron Age of universal armaments, 
 mutual destruction, and the supremacy of might and 
 matter over the moral laws of God and the higher 
 civilization and onward progress of mankind. Donoso 
 Cortes was mocked as a dreamer in his day, when 
 he said, " Christian Europe is moribund. It is dying 
 because it is poisoned. It cannot live by matter alone, 
 and it is poisoned by every word that proceedeth 
 out of the mouth of its philosophers." We are eye- 
 witnesses of this dissolution. Materialists and doc- 
 trinaires, sceptics and Positivists, and the schoolmen 
 
xii Preface. 
 
 of profit and loss, tare and tret, with their ignoble 
 and unjoyous science, have dwarfed statesmen into 
 politicians. These are the pontiffs and the prophets 
 who are labouring to eliminate Christianity from 
 civilization, and to make the nations conspire against 
 the Catholic Church, the mother of their civilization, 
 as the enemy of their welfare and the obstacle of 
 their progress. 
 
 It is a sign of happy augury when we see laymen 
 like Mr, Bellingham and the Baron de Haulleville 
 devoting their intelligence and their industry to the 
 refutation of this great deceit. 
 
 HENRY EDWARD, 
 
 Card. -Archbishop of Westminster. 
 
 April 12, 1878. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Page 
 
 Chapter I. 
 
 Neo-Protestantism of the Modern School of Continental 
 
 Liberalism . . i 
 
 Chapter II. 
 Causes of the Civil and Material Prosperity of Nations . 22 
 
 Chapter III. 
 
 Comparison between Catholic and Protestant Countries 
 
 from an Economical point of view .... 69 
 
 Chapter IV. 
 Catholics and Colonization 108 
 
 Chapter V. 
 Catholicism and Civil Liberty 141 
 
 Chapter VL 
 Catholic Countries and Education 181 
 
:xiv Contents. 
 
 Page 
 
 Chapter VI I. 
 JRelative Morality of Catholic and Protestant Countries . 215 
 
 Chapter VIII. 
 
 The Reformation in connection with the Development of 
 
 Civil Liberties 232 
 
 Chapter IX. 
 Conclusion .......... 279 
 
CHAPTER I. 
 
 NEO-PROTESTANTISM OF THE MODERN SCHOOL 
 OF CONTINENTAL LIBERALISM. 
 
 Opinion of Lord IMacaulay on the perpetuity of the Catholic 
 Church — Origin of this work — A new apologetic essay on 
 Protestantism — Vague character of Neo-Protestantism — Its 
 tactics against the CathoHc Church — Result of Buckle's method 
 applied to theology — Thesis of the modern school of Conti- 
 nental Liberalism a prio7'i false — Aim and object of this work. 
 
 HIRTY years ago one of the most illus- 
 trious Protestant historians of this century 
 wrote as follows : — 
 
 " How is it that Protestantism did so much and yet did no 
 more ? How is it that the Church of Rome, having lost a great 
 part of Europe, not only ceased to lose, but actually regained 
 nearly half of what she lost t It is certainly a most curious 
 and important question ; and on this question Professor Ranke 
 has thrown far more light than any other person who has written 
 on it. There is not, and there never was, on this earth a work 
 
 B 
 
2 Neo-Protestantism of the 
 
 of human policy so well deserving of examination as the Roman 
 Catholic Church. 
 
 The history of that Church joins together the two great ages 
 of human civilization. No other institution is left standing 
 which carries the mind back to the times when the smoke of 
 sacrifice rose from the Pantheon, and when camelopards and 
 tigers bounded in the Flavian amphitheatre. 
 
 The proudest royal houses are but of yesterday when com- 
 pared with the line of the Supreme Pontiffs. 
 
 That line we trace back in an unbroken series from the Pope 
 who crowned Napoleon in the nineteenth century to the Pope 
 who crowned Pepin in the eighth ; and far beyond the time of 
 Pepin the august dynasty extends, till it is lost in the twilight of 
 fable. 
 
 The republic of Venice came next in antiquity. But the re- 
 public of Venice was modern when compared with the Papacy ; 
 and the republic of Venice is gone, and the Papacy remains. 
 The Papacy remains, not in decay, not a mere antique, but full 
 of life and youthful vigour. 
 
 The Catholic Church is still sending forth to the farthest ends 
 of the world missionaries as zealous as those who landed in Kent 
 with Augustine, and still confronting hostile kings with the same 
 spirit with which she confronted Attila. 
 
 The number of her children is greater than in any former age. 
 
 Her acquisitions in the New World have more than compen- 
 sated her for what she has lost in the Old. 
 
 Her spiritual ascendency extends over the vast countries 
 which a centur)' hence may not improbably contain a population 
 as large as that which now inhabits Europe. 
 
 The members of her communion are certainly not fewer than 
 a hundred and fifty milHons ; and it will be difficult to show that 
 all the other Christian sects united amount to a hundred and 
 twenty millions 
 
Modern School of Continental Liberalism. 3 
 
 Nor do we see any sign which indicates that the term of her 
 long dominion is approaching. 
 
 She saw the commencement of all the governments and of all 
 the ecclesiastical establishments that now exist in the world, and 
 we feel no assurance that she is not destined to see the end of 
 them all. 
 
 She was great and respected before the Saxon had set foot on 
 Britain — before the Frank had passed the Rhine — when Grecian 
 eloquence still flourished in Antioch — when idols were still wor- 
 shipped in the temple of Mecca ; and she may still exist in 
 undiminished vigour when some traveller from New Zealand 
 shall, in the midst of a vast solitude, take his stand on a broken 
 arch of London Bridge to sketch the ruins of St. Paul's. 
 
 We often hear it said that the world is constantly becoming 
 more and more enlightened, and that this enlightening must be 
 favourable to Protestantism and unfavourable to Catholicism. 
 
 We wish that we could think so ; but we see great reason to 
 doubt whether this be a well-founded expectation. 
 
 We see that during the last two hundred and fifty years the 
 human mind has been in the highest degree active ; that it has 
 made great advances in every branch of natural philosophy ; 
 that it has produced innumerable inventions tending to promote 
 the convenience of life ; that medicine, surgery, chemistry, en- 
 gineering, have been very greatly improved, though not to so 
 great an extent as the physical sciences. 
 
 Yet we can see that, during these two hundred and fifty years. 
 Protestantism has made no conquests worth speaking of. 
 
 Nay, we believe that, as far as there has been a change, that 
 change has, on the whole, been in favour of the Church of 
 Rome. 
 
 We cannot, therefore, feel confident that the progress of 
 knowledge will necessarily be fatal to a system which has, to 
 say the least, stood its ground in spite of the immense progress 
 
4 NeO'Protestantism of the 
 
 made by the human race in knowledge since the days of Queen 
 Elizabeth." 
 
 Who amongst our readers can have failed to re- 
 cognize Lord Macaulay as the author of this remark- 
 able quotation ? ^ 
 
 Preserved from a spirit of bigotry by profound 
 learning and good sense, he stands pre-eminent 
 amongst English writers. 
 
 His name and that of Ranke suggested themselves 
 to our mind when lately reading an article entitled 
 " Protestantism and Catholicism Considered in their 
 Bearing upon the Liberty and Prosperity of Nations," 
 from the pen of M. de Laveleye, Professor of Political 
 Economy in the State University of Liege. 
 
 The English translation of the original was pre- 
 faced by a letter from Mr. Gladstone, which according 
 to the " Saturday Review " ^ did not add much merit 
 to the work. 
 
 Herr Bluntschli, one of the Professors of the Pro- 
 testantenverein or Prussian association of disunited 
 Protestants, prefaced the German translation with a 
 letter which suggests the idea of a man sure before- 
 
 ' Critical and Historical Essays contributed to the " Edin- 
 burgh Review " by Lord Macaulay. 
 ^ "Saturday Review" of June, 1875. 
 
Modern School of Co7itinental Liberalism. 5 
 
 hand of the approval of his readers; and M. de 
 Savornin Lohnan did not hesitate to place this 
 negation of the Catholic Church before his co- 
 religionists in Holland. 
 
 Since, then, the question has been taken up by men 
 of such repute, it may be well for us to consider briefly 
 some of the arguments brought forward. We may 
 begin by stating that the accusations made against 
 the Church in the original article are as old as the 
 Church itself, and have been frequently disseminated 
 since the time of St. Augustine^ and Julian the 
 Apostate.^ Theoretically the modern school of sub- 
 jective rationalists recognize every religious belief, 
 but in practice they do not extend their recognition 
 to the Universal Church. 
 
 They hover like Milton's fallen angel over the waste 
 •of religious errors, throwing defiance at the sun, the 
 light of the world, " O Sun, I hate thee." 
 
 We are informed by them that the Latin races are 
 in a state of visible decline, and that the future of the 
 world is in the hands of the Teuton and the Sclave ; 
 that the French, Spaniards, Italians, in short all of 
 
 •* See Klee's " History of Dogma," vol. i. p. 71. 
 ^ See Works of the Emperor Julian, published by E. Talbot. 
 Paris, 1863. 
 
6 Neo-Protestantisin of the 
 
 Latin origin and blood, except perhaps those that 
 combine something of a Genevan element ex stirpe 
 Carteret, are degenerate ; and that the Russians, the 
 Prussians, and perhaps the Anglo-Saxons (though 
 these latter are still too Catholic) are the nations now 
 occupied in the resuscitation of the world. 
 
 The explanation of this phenomenon is, that all 
 Latin races are afflicted with '' aipertinagey'^ according 
 to the word used by M. Prevost Paradol. 
 
 The nations that neglect themselves are peopled 
 with monks ; all the Latin races except the liberals of 
 Geneva have the Catholic virus in their veins. 
 
 Such are the reasons given to show that they are 
 both physically and morally corrupt, and that they are 
 therefore condemned to an incurable disease. 
 
 The Teutonic races, on the contrary, are chiefly 
 Protestant, and since Protestantism alone possesses the 
 words of eternal life and the promise of immortality, 
 the races that are Protestant increase and prosper, and 
 
 ' " Cupertinage" is a covert allusion to the office of St. Joseph 
 of Cupertino, which was introduced into France with the Roman 
 liturgy. A polemical discussion on this subject arose between 
 men of letters, in which this word played a great part ; and the 
 cutting sarcasms of M. Louis Veuillot have become legendary in, 
 French journalism. 
 
Modern School of Continental Liberalism. 7 
 
 will continue to progress on the wings of purity and 
 religion until the end of all things. 
 
 The Sclavonic races are mentioned with discretion ; 
 the present was not a suitable time to sing their 
 praises. 
 
 In order that we may not be accused of distorting 
 the ideas of the Liege professor we will content 
 ourselves with an extract taken from the "Saturday 
 Review." ^ 
 
 " This pamphlet has now been translated into English, with 
 a preface by Mr. Gladstone. 
 
 The preface does not add much to the value of the composi- 
 tion, but it may serve the object it was probably designed to 
 fulfil, and aid the circulation of the book in England. Even 
 without his aid the work ought to please English readers, for it 
 shows the immense superiority of Protestantism over its rival, 
 and demonstrates how much more rich, free, happy, and pros- 
 perous are the adherents of the reformed than the adherents of 
 the unreformed faith. 
 
 This to us is an old tale, but old tales are often true, and to 
 most Englishmen it seems a proposition equally true and grati- 
 fying that all worldly and most spiritual advantages are on the 
 side of Protestantism. 
 
 M. de Laveleye also points out that it is the peculiar evil of 
 Catholicism that it corrupts its opponents and drives them into 
 revolutionary despair. They seldom escape from the direct influ- 
 ence of the system in which they have been brought up, and are 
 as positive they are right as ready to grind to pieces all who 
 
 1 (( 
 
 Saturday Review" of June, 1875. 
 
8 Neo-Protestantism of the 
 
 differ from them, and as ready to abuse power if they get it as 
 any ecclesiastical faction. 
 
 They have nothing better to offer to the world than a bundle 
 of negations and a general abhorrence of piety ; and, as M. de 
 Laveleye most justly observes, man cannot live without religion. 
 The general conclusion M. de Laveleye arrives at is a most 
 melancholy one. The reader naturally thinks that all this lauda- 
 tion of Protestantism, this insistance on the necessity of a creed, 
 must end in an exhortation to his countrymen to turn Protes- 
 tants, but there is not a word of this in the pamphlet. 
 
 M. de Laveleye discusses the relative superiority of Protes- 
 tantism and Catholicism, just as if he were discussing whether 
 Mars or Venus was the larger planet. There was a time when 
 many Catholic countries, and especially France, might have 
 been Protestant, but the golden opportunity was allowed to 
 slip by, and, as M. de Laveleye evidently thinks, cannot be re- 
 gained. 
 
 Catholic countries are destined, he seems to consider, to be 
 eternally the prey of alternate ecclesiastical and revolutionary 
 despotism ; but they are not destined to become Protestant. In 
 short, they always believe too much or too little, and so Protes- 
 tantism is not made for them. 
 
 Protestantism is thus a royal road to human happiness, which 
 is closed to all except those whose princes happened to take a 
 particular side in the sixteenth century. 
 
 There is much more of truth in this than Protestants have 
 ever taken the trouble to recognize ; but it is impossible to dis- 
 cuss how far it is a true theory, and why and what limitations 
 are to be put upon it, without entering on theology. 
 
 In the sphere of politics, however, it must be admitted that a 
 Belgian is much to be pitied who witnesses the fierce dissensions 
 by which his countr>' is torn, who sees even darker days coming, 
 and who has also come to the mournful conclusion that the only 
 
Modern School of Continental Liberalism. 9 
 
 way of escape that Belgians could have is barred to them by the 
 blindness of their ancestors." 
 
 First of all, it is necessary to ascertain what species 
 of Protestantism it is that these modern reformers 
 advocate and approve. 
 
 Is it that of Henry VIII. or of Luther ; is it that of 
 Calvin, of Zwingle, or of Knox .? 
 
 Is it Quaker or Puritan ; Presbyterian, Congrega- 
 tional, Independent, Baptist, or Mormon } 
 
 Is the deity that they worship the god of Herr Sydow 
 of Berlin, or, according to the language of M. Thiers, 
 the " bateleur'' god of M. Guizot t 
 
 Is the Christianity they recommend that of Dr. 
 Colenso, or of Herr Bunsen ; is it the Puritanical con- 
 ception of the late Herr von Gerlach, or the sensational 
 Puseyism of the Anglican school of thought ; is it the 
 liberal Protestantism of M. de Pressense, or the Pro- 
 testantized liberalism of Professor Bluntschli ; is it the 
 Calvinistic State-worship of M. Carteret, or the Hegelian 
 Lutheranism of Prince Bismarck } M. de Laveleye 
 has not informed us. 
 
 Such an omission may possibly constitute the clever- 
 ness of a diplomatist to the benefit of the public for 
 whom he writes, but it reveals a doctrinal weakness 
 that is easy to d9tect. 
 
lo Neo- Protestantism of the 
 
 If it is sufficient to reject the principle of authority 
 in order to be a Christian, or in other words, if one is 
 only a real Christian when outside the fold of the 
 Church, one Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic, it is neces- 
 sary that we should ask for details, in order that we 
 may become enlightened by a comparison of religious 
 beliefs. 
 
 It is evident to all sensible minds, that the future 
 cannot consist in a mere denial of the Catholic 
 Church. 
 
 A public act of faith is necessary, and something 
 definite and positive must be laid down. 
 
 We must ascertain whether M. de Laveleye's inter- 
 pretation of the Bible brings him to profess the 
 doctrine of the Incarnation, of the Word made flesh, 
 of the Holy Trinity, the Resurrection of our Lord, — 
 and in short whether it brings him to believe in the 
 supernatural ? 
 
 We must ascertain whether the followers of this new 
 school consider prayer necessary, whether they are 
 persuaded of the existence of the Devil, and so on ad 
 iiifinittcin. 
 
 The position they assume enables us to assert that 
 upon all these great matters there is no certainty, and 
 that if certainty did exist, they would not dare to admit 
 
Modern School of Contijieiital Liberalism. 1 1 
 
 it, for such an avowal would alienate many of their 
 admirers and supporters. 
 
 In matters of religion, however, mere negation is 
 insufficient ; religion is not an abstraction, but a positive 
 assertion — active, efficacious, and surrounded by an 
 exterior form of worship. 
 
 Absolute certainty is necessary for assertion. 
 
 There is no doubt that subjective reason is able to 
 attain to the philosophical conception of God, but 
 there is need of revelation to define the living personal 
 God of the Christian, and the entire region of the 
 supernatural. 
 
 Instead of defending the Catholic Church against 
 attacks which are in reality as old as the Church her- 
 self, it will not be difficult to take the offensive, and 
 treat of the thesis laid down a priori. 
 
 Does Protestantism, in its thousand-and-one varied 
 manifestations, from the established Churches of 
 England and Sweden, down to the Socinianism 
 and platonic Christianity of the modern continental 
 liberals, in truth represent the doctrine of Jesus 
 Christ } 
 
 If indeed each individual may freely interpret the 
 sacred Scriptures for himself, there may logically exist 
 as many different religions upon the earth as there are 
 
1 2 Neo- Protestantism of the 
 
 individuals — that is to say, a day may come when 
 there will be no longer any religion at all. 
 
 The various Protestant communities carry within 
 them elements that must eventually bring about the 
 destruction of all Christian doctrine. 
 
 It was for this reason that statesmen like Quinet, 
 philosophers like Vacherot, and poets^like Eugene Sue, 
 "^ stated that the attempt to destroy Catholicism without 
 putting anything in its place, did not and could not 
 attain the end in view ; and it was for this reason that 
 they wished for the perversion of the Catholic masses 
 to some form of Protestantism, so that they might 
 become the accomplices of subjective rationalism in its 
 warfare against the Universal Church. 
 
 M. de Laveleye in his pamphlet neither informed 
 his readers what creed he eulogized, nor did he prove 
 theologically that Protestantism in its general form, 
 as the negation of the Universal Church, is the 
 supreme and infallible expression of the Christian 
 revelation. 
 
 He ingeniously conceals the barrenness of his 
 positivist doctrines behind a convenient negation. 
 
 Scientific men do not ordinarily act in this manner, 
 even when they have become the disciples of Buckle. 
 
 If we rightly understand the analysis that has been 
 
Modern ScJiool of Continental Liberalism, 13 
 
 made of the works of this writer, they are based upon 
 the deductive method, and though we willingly admit 
 it in the daily exercise of positive politics, we cannot 
 accept such a principle in the logical foundation of 
 philosophy. 
 
 M. de Laveleye applies it to the development of 
 the subject of which we are treating, and puts forward 
 an argument of refutation of invincible force : he lays 
 down, with a certain boastfulness of tone, what he 
 styles the benefits of Protestantism, and declares that 
 they have produced a civilization in comparison with 
 which the social influence of the Universal Church 
 appears completely inferior. This style of argument, 
 since it proves too much, in reality proves nothing. 
 Athens in the time of Pericles, Carthage under the 
 rule of Hannibal, Rome in the time of Virgil, and 
 Spain under the Arabian caliphs have severally pre- 
 sented a spectacle of *' civilization " which from the 
 human point of view far excels in splendour the 
 ponderous rule of Frederick I., twelfth elector of 
 Brandenbourg and first king of Prussia, the violent 
 regime of Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden, or the 
 rough presidency of President Jackson in the United 
 States of America. 
 
 According to this reasoning the paganism of the 
 
14 Neo-Protestantis77i of the 
 
 Greeks, Romans, and Phcenicians, and the Ma- 
 hometanism of the Arab races, would be infinitely 
 superior to modern Protestantism. Herr von Hart- 
 mann^ (the present fashionable light at Berlin) 
 declares that " the inevitable result of the philo- 
 sophical system of the tinbetvussten must be a return 
 to paganism," and well may it be asked why such 
 should not be the case ? Where in the present day 
 can be found such names as ^Eschylus, Euripides, 
 Sophocles, Plato, Pindar, Aristophanes, Demosthenes, 
 Phidias, and Praxiteles, such powerful orators, such 
 sublime poets, such profound philosophers, and such 
 gifted artists ? 
 
 Where such magnificent conceptions as the Par- 
 thenon, Venus of Milo, or the Laocoon ? 
 
 Has either the electorate of Brandenbourg, the 
 town of Berne, the kingdom of Sweden, the territory 
 of Washington, or the court of George I. of Hanover, 
 ever presented a similar assemblage of poetry, of grace, 
 of intellect, of beauty, or of natural reason ? 
 
 Theophilus Gautier preferred Aspasia to all the 
 Protestant matrons, and out of a hundred persons 
 who will approve of M. de Laveleye's treatise, there 
 
 ' "Die Philosophie des Unbe'wusste7i" (the school which is 
 gaining the upper hand in Germany), by Herr Hartmann, 
 
Modern School of Co7itincntal Liberalism. 1 5 
 
 are not ten who would be of a different opinion to 
 the wily pagan of Lutctia. 
 
 Is there one Protestant State that would not feel 
 flattered at being compared to Rome in the time of 
 the Caisars ? And yet no one could venture to assert 
 that the Latins of Pagan Rome possessed this great 
 political, literary, and economical superiority because 
 they were not members of the Catholic Church. 
 
 We are unwilling to prolong this train of thought 
 beyond bounds, but before bringing to a close this 
 refutation a priori, let us suppose what does not 
 exist, let us suppose that everything alleged to be 
 true is actually true, that for instance in every case 
 the different Protestant sects do display a striking 
 superiority over Catholicism, and that the organic 
 and fatal debility of Catholics in regard to politics, 
 literature, and economy is precisely what it has been 
 asserted to be. 
 
 Will anything even then have been theologically 
 
 proved ? 
 
 " Et quand I'autel brisd que la foule abandonnd s'dcroulerait 
 sur moi ! — temple que je chdris, temple od j'ai tant re^u, temple 
 ou j'ai tant appris, j'embrasserais encore ta dernicre colonne, 
 dussd-je ctre dcrasd sous tes sacrds debris." ' 
 
 ' English translation : — 
 
 " And if the overthrown altar from which the people had fled 
 
1 6 Neo- Protestantism of the 
 
 Men who aspire to enlighten the nations who 
 have produced Charlemagne, Dante, St. Thomas 
 of Aquin, Christopher Columbus, and St. Vincent 
 de Paul, should not evince ignorance of the first 
 rudiments of Christian doctrine. Our LT)rd Jesus 
 Christ did not come down upon earth to give 
 salvation to political societies, to enrich them, to 
 teach them to read and write, to indoctrinate them 
 with the principles of the free exchange of thought 
 (excellent though such things might be), to lead them 
 to discuss the properties of steam and electricity, or to 
 develop in them a taste for literature. He was born 
 in a stable, cradled in a manger, brought up in a 
 workshop like any ordinary artisan, and crucified 
 upon a tree for the salvation of mankind. 
 
 We shall spare our readers dissertation on such 
 a subject ; a glance at a biblical concordance will 
 disclose any number of pages exactly to the 
 point. 
 
 The essence of Catholic doctrine ia summed up in 
 the following words of Holy Writ : " Seek ye first the 
 
 were to fall upon me, even were I to find my death beneath its 
 sacred ruins, I would yet embrace the last column of that temple 
 which I love, and in which I have received and learned so 
 much." 
 
Modern School of Coiitinental Liberalism, 1 7 
 
 kingdom of God, and His justice, and all the rest shall 
 be added unto you." 
 
 This " rest " has been given and will be given to all 
 who are worthy of it. 
 
 The end, aim, and object of the Incarnation of our 
 Blessed Lord is supernatural. 
 
 " Jesus Christ," such are the words of the catechism, 
 *' Jesus Christ came to deliver us from the slavery of 
 the devil and eternal death." ^ 
 
 When the souls of individual citizens are saved, the 
 empires they people are saved also, and as a simple 
 matter of fact for the space of eighteen centuries no 
 Catholic nation has become obliterated. 
 
 Nevertheless, even if a nation composed of faithful 
 Catholics should become obliterated, or without being 
 actually obliterated, were to vegetate without attain- 
 ing to that pitch of success so dear to " men of the 
 day," such a fact would prove nothing against the 
 Catholic Church, since the Incarnation of the Word of 
 God is beyond the order of nature. 
 
 St. Augustine, who lived in a society quite as 
 civilized as that of our modern critics, and who was 
 
 ' See St. Luke v. 31, 32; ix. 56; xix. 20; St. Matt. ix. 13 ; 
 St. Mark ii. 17 ; St. John x. 10 ; xii. 46, 47, &c. ; Epistle of St. 
 Paul to Timothy, i. 15. 
 
 C 
 
1 8 NeO'Protestantism of the 
 
 as learned in philosophy and civilization as any of the 
 professors of modern Europe, wrote to a friend to 
 console him for great worldly losses, words which 
 have lived through centuries as a motto for all 
 Catholics, " Nmjtqtdd Christianas es tit in hoc scectda 
 fioreres ? " " Wert thou made a Christian in order to 
 be successful in this world?" This quotation is the 
 paraphrase of the text of St. Luke, ** The children of 
 this world are wiser in their generation than the 
 children of light." ^ 
 
 If it were demonstrated with mathematical pre- 
 cision that the Catholics all over the surface of the 
 globe were destitute of reason and intellect, and that 
 Protestants were without exception consummate poli- 
 ticians, eminent economists, unparalleled writers, and 
 that every one of them would become millionaires, 
 theologically nothing would have been proved. 
 
 The possession and exercise of Christian truth, in 
 its ideal purity and beauty, does not ipso facto bestow 
 any equality of temporal advantages ; a beggar may 
 be a saint, but even a whole nation of saints would 
 not necessarily possess any infallible promise of tem- 
 poral bliss. Such a thesis is a priori false. 
 
 A man of intelligence and deep piety, a member of 
 
 ' St. Luke xvi. 8, 
 
Modern School of Continental Liberalism. 19 
 
 the Institute of France, and a Professor of Political 
 Economy, recently made the following remark : 
 '* Protestants and Liberals conceive a certain ideal of 
 human society, and then easily prove that the States 
 that are fashioned according to their conception, fulfil 
 that ideal ; when Catholics accept the ideal thus 
 placed before them, they benevolently fall into the 
 
 snare." 
 
 Another clever device of our opponents is to sup- 
 press in the most arbitrary manner all differences of 
 nature, of latitudes, and of climate, all differences of 
 custom and of national genius. 
 
 They would fain cast every individual in the same 
 mould, which it is needless to say would be of their 
 own pattern. 
 
 Such a conception of mankind is completely con- 
 tradicted by facts ; it would tend to render the whole 
 universe a monotonous sojourn, and to reduce the 
 human mind to a colourless and insipid uniformity. 
 
 Those who are cognizant of this error generally fall 
 into another, by attempting to subject nations that 
 are " ever-changing " to the tyranny of an exclusively 
 logical rule, and offer to man as his earthly end and 
 ambition, an inordinate desire for comfort and riches, 
 as if the great end of life was luxury and ease, instead 
 
20 Neo- Protestantism of the 
 
 of its being but an apprenticeship of sacrifice and a 
 preparation for death. Reflections like these are 
 sufficient to undermine the whole collection of "de- 
 ductive arguments " that have been brought against 
 us, but modern works (not to mention those of 
 ancient writers) like those of Auguste Nicholas, the 
 Abbe Senac, the Abbe Martin, M. Charles Perin, 
 Cardinal Deschamps, Manzoni, the Abbe Margotti, 
 Hettinger, Klee, Moehler, Hergenrother, Balmez, 
 Maguire, Dr. Newman, Cardinal Wiseman, and Car- 
 dinal Manning completely refute them. 
 
 We cannot admit the thesis that has been laid down, 
 but we will nevertheless follow step by step the various 
 evolutions that have been deduced, which course will 
 be for us a demonstration ct posteriori. Before, how- 
 ever, undertaking this task we may be permitted to 
 warn the reader against any erroneous interpretation of 
 our intentions ; until we receive proof to the contrary 
 we refuse to believe in this new-fangled form of Protes- 
 tantism. We are personally acquainted with many 
 pious Protestants for whom wehave a profound respect; 
 we believe in their honesty and sincerity of purpose, 
 and we render homage to the excellence of their in- 
 tentions and the uprightness of their private life. 
 
 If any such persons should read these pages, we trust 
 
Modern School of Continental Liberalis^n. 2 1 
 
 they may find in them nothing but a proof of our 
 desire to serve faithfully the cause of truth, and should 
 there be any expression capable of giving personal 
 offence either to them or to the leaders of this modern 
 school of liberals, we retract it beforehand. 
 
 We wish to put in practice the noble precept of St. 
 Augustine, " Interficite errores, diligite err ant es'' 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 CAUSES OF THE CIVIL AND MATERIAL PROSPERITY 
 
 OF NATIONS. 
 
 What is progress ? — Is the phenomenon of the progress of Pro- 
 testant nations the result of race ? — The English Government 
 the product of Catholic ages — Civil government of Catholic 
 countries before the era of the French Revolution and the so- 
 called Reformation — Civil strength and vigour of Spanish 
 Catholics — Comparison between the civil liberty of the Italians 
 and of the Prussians since the Reformation — Comparison be- 
 tween the social condition of the Irish and the Scotch — 
 Catholicism in Switzerland. 
 
 E take the following passages from the 
 commencement of M. de Laveleye's re- 
 cent work : — 
 
 " Sectarian passions or anti-religious prejudice have been too 
 often imported into the study of these questions. It is time that 
 we should apply to it the method of observation and the scien- 
 tific impartiality of the physiologist and the naturalist. 
 
Civil and Material Prosperity of Nations. 23 
 
 When the facts are once established, irrefragable conclusions 
 will foUow." 
 
 " The fact that Catholic races progress much less rapidly than 
 those which are no longer Catholic, and that relatively to these 
 latter they even seem to retrograde, appears to be proved both by 
 history and more particularly by recent contemporary events. 
 
 This fact is so manifest that the French bishops make it a 
 text of their reproaches to unbelieving Catholics." 
 
 The first conclusion is not very clear in its terms. In 
 the first place, what is meant by the word " progress.''" 
 
 It is a word that does not exist in the poHtical 
 language of the Anglo-Saxon race, and may be made 
 to comprehend a great deal that is bad as well as a 
 great deal that is good. 
 
 The English, the most practical people in Europe, 
 never speak of progress ; they turn their attention 
 towards " improvement." 
 
 In the second place, what is meant by ^' retrogres- 
 sion .? " 
 
 There must of necessity be an understanding as to the 
 use of certain terms, and ours are the very opposite 
 to those of the school of modern liberalism. 
 
 It is evident that M. de Laveleye has attempted to 
 prove that all Catholic nations retrograde — that is to 
 say, that they are a race of people who have no taste 
 for political liberty. 
 
24 Causes of the Civil and 
 
 Whence comes this phenomenon ? 
 
 M. de Laveleye answers it as follows : — 
 
 " The English understand the parliamentary system and the 
 exercise of practical liberty better than the French. Is this 
 owing to the influence of blood ? I do not think so ; for until 
 near the sixteenth century France, Spain, and Italy possessed 
 provincial liberties of a very similar character to English liberties. 
 The only notable difference was that the English had a single 
 parliament and a centralized system which proved strong enough 
 to hold its own against royalty. The Norman Conquest having 
 united England, an united parliament was the result ; and royalty 
 being very powerful, nobles and commons combined to resist it, 
 whereas elsewhere they were constantly at strife. The destinies 
 of France and England only become entirely different from the 
 beginning of the sixteenth century, when the Puritans had de- 
 feated the Stuarts, and when Louis XIV., by expelling the Pro- 
 testants from France, had extirpated the last remnants of local 
 autonomy and the sole important elements of resistance with 
 which despotism might have been opposed." 
 
 Volumes might be written on such a subject, but 
 we purpose to confine ourselves to a few brief con- 
 siderations in reply to these summary assertions. 
 Our adversaries admit that the great misfortune for 
 France consists in the fact that it has been governed 
 from the fourteenth century by the ideas of the Renais- 
 sance, and yet the Renaissance is in fact almost iden- 
 tical with modern continental liberalism.^ 
 
 ' An excellent article entitled " The Renaissance and Liberty," 
 
Material Prosperity of Nations. 25 
 
 The tenets of the French Government at that period 
 represented by royalty were fundamentally " liberal." 
 
 French unity is one of the principal results of a 
 policy, which radical historians like Michelet, Quinet, 
 Blanc, Esquiros, and H. Martin praise in a manner 
 so compromising for the successors of St. Louis. 
 
 England had the good fortune to preserve all the 
 political principles of the Catholic Middle Ages in her 
 government, even after the troublous period of the 
 Reformation ; the best proof of which is, that she 
 maintained an obstinate opposition to the introduction 
 of the Roman code, whose royal Csesarism overspread 
 the whole continent of Europe from the period of the 
 Renaissance. She preserved the text and principles 
 of Magna Charta, a document having for its first 
 signature the name of Stephen Langton, Cardinal of 
 the Roman Church ; she kept her old national tra- 
 ditions and ancient laws ; and even to the present day 
 points with pride to portions of her legislation dating 
 back to the time of Alfred the Great ; she maintained 
 intact the interior organization of her secular govern- 
 ment, and even in many respects the exterior form of 
 the government of the Catholic Church. 
 
 may be found in the January number of the " Dublin Review " 
 for 1878. 
 
26 Causes of the Civil and 
 
 Since the Reformation the remarkable phenomenon 
 exists of one nation who ceased to be CathoHc (by 
 what unworthy means is well known) but yet pre- 
 served an administration which has to this day re- 
 mained the most Catholic in Europe, whilst another, 
 who from the fact that the great mass of its members 
 were Catholic deserved the title of Eldest Daughter 
 of the Church, has never ceased from the time of 
 Louis XVI. to be governed by princes and statesmen 
 whose political doctrines are at variance with the 
 teaching of the Catholic Church. 
 
 This fact of historical philosophy has been com- 
 mented on with great power by M. Coquille, former 
 editor of the **Univers" and now on the editorial staff 
 of the " Monde." The glorious liberty of the institu- 
 tions of England can never be thrown in the teeth of 
 Catholics. 
 
 Those institutions are our own, the work of our 
 Catholic forefathers, and worthy of the highest 
 admiration. 
 
 To this very day the House of Commons is presided 
 over by a person attired in the costume of the Middle 
 Ages attended by his chaplain, who reads the prayers 
 of Christians, just as in the days of Edward III. and 
 Philippa of Hainault. 
 
Material Prosperity of Nations. 2 7 
 
 Close to the palace of Westminster is the tomb of 
 St. Edward the Confessor and a grave-yard of the 
 fourteenth century, which the piety of the English 
 people has kept intact in the midst of a metropolis 
 like London, but which would soon have been de- 
 stroyed and converted into some practical use, if it 
 had been in the hands of the modern continental 
 school of progressists. 
 
 Representative government as it exists in England 
 is the product of the Catholic Middle Ages ; it has 
 been lost in France since the titne of Louis XL (nearly 
 a century before the official birth of Protestantism), 
 and in the electorate of Brandenbourg, the principal 
 Protestant Power of Europe, it can never be said to 
 have existed at all. 
 
 It was preserved throughout the whole of the 
 Netherlands, as well amongst the Calvinist popu- 
 lation of the north as amongst the Catholic popula- 
 tion of the south, until the reign of the " liberal " 
 Joseph IL of Austria, and the "liberating" army of 
 the French General Dumouriez, who deprived the 
 entire country of its independence and secular liber- 
 ties, by infecting the inhabitants with the false prin- 
 ciples of the French Revolution. 
 
 The ecclesiastical principality of Liege, previous to 
 
28 Causes of the Civil and 
 
 its overthrow in 1789, possessed a representative 
 government very similar to that in England, which 
 had existed for many centuries. Burke, in his 
 *' Thoughts on French Affairs," asserts that it is not 
 easy to conceive governments more mild and in- 
 dulgent than the Church sovereignties. 
 
 If any of our readers are interested in this subject 
 we would suggest the works of M. Poulet, the eminent 
 professor of Louvain, or those of the learned Canon 
 Daris, to their notice. 
 
 It is a well-known historical fact that in Switzer- 
 land Catholicism and free institutions flourished for 
 centuries in complete harmony until the era of Calvin, 
 and that even after the troublous era of the Reforma- 
 tion the cantons which remained Catholic (equally 
 with those that had become Protestant) preserved 
 their Christian forms of democracy until their delive- 
 rance by the war of the Sonderbund. 
 
 Quite recently the hardy mountaineers of the Tyrol 
 celebrated the fifth centenary of their local institutions. 
 
 Though it is the fashion amongst a certain class to 
 sneer at this vigorous Alpine race, as men completely 
 bound in the chains of Roman slavery, they have 
 nought to covet from any nation in the world, either 
 as regards nobility of mind, strength of body, or the 
 
Material Prosperity of Nations. 29 
 
 possession of all the virtues that make men bold and 
 free. 
 
 Can the constitution of St. Stephen of Hungary- 
 be considered inferior to the ancient institutions of 
 England 1 Does anyone seriously imagine that be- 
 cause there were no Puritans or Quakers, Presbyterians 
 or Independents in the various ecclesiastical electorates 
 of the Holy Roman Empire, that therefore the people 
 were less free and more corrupt than the half-civilized 
 Scotch } 
 
 Would anyone have the presumption to assert that 
 the peasants of Westphalia or the people of the Rhine- 
 land, wherein town and rural life is superabundantly 
 vigorous, have become degenerate by reason of their 
 profession of the Catholic faith } 
 
 Could it be said that Suabia and Franconia, lands 
 hallowed and converted by St. Boniface, whose inhabi- 
 tants preserved an amount of energy that manifested 
 itself in the Thirty Years' War, in the Seven Years' 
 War, and again under the rule of the French revolu- 
 tionary authorities at the beginning of this century, — 
 have nurtured people who have become degenerate 
 by reason of the profession of Catholicism } 
 
 Is it not rather evident that their strong religious 
 faith has alone preserved them powerful and pure, 
 
30 Causes of the Civil and 
 
 notwithstanding the legislation of liberal govern- 
 ments ? 
 
 The example of Spain admirably illustrates our 
 argument. 
 
 Since the time of Charles V. that country has been 
 despoiled of the institutions which (for the sake of 
 abbreviation) we shall style "the representative 
 system ;" the absolutism of Philip II. and of his suc- 
 cessors, who were subjected to the influence of the 
 Renaissance, the political absurdities of the Bourbons, 
 and the liberal ^ doctrines of the present century, have 
 all done their best to corrupt the Spanish nation. 
 
 Everything 'that could have been done has been 
 done to effect the political destruction of a beautiful 
 country inhabited by the most energetic race in 
 Europe. Our argument is, that this people offered 
 resistance, precisely because they were strongly at- 
 tached to the Catholic Church. 
 
 For more than 700 years (the total existence of 
 ancient Rome) the Catholic Goths of Spain, having 
 taken refuge in the caverns of the Asturias, watched, 
 prayed, and fought to preserve their own homes, and 
 at the same time those of Europe, from the corroding 
 
 * Liberals, in Spanish, liberales. The word took its origin 
 from the country of Cervantes. 
 
Mate7nal Prosperity of Nations. 3 1 
 
 contact of Islamism; their national assemblies were 
 councils, and their laws, so deeply imbued with the 
 spirit of religion that they were called by ecclesiastical 
 names, were democratic in the Christian sense of the 
 word. 
 
 For more than seven centuries this magnificent 
 race of giants continued a struggle which in the end 
 resulted in victory. 
 
 Scarcely, however, had they freed themselves by 
 their undaunted courage from the yoke of the Mussul- 
 mans, than they were obliged for the space of three 
 centuries to submit to the yoke of royal absolutism ; 
 and before long the last traces of their ancient insti- 
 tutions remained only in the mountainous district of 
 Navarre. 
 
 But the Catholic faith was still cherished, like coals 
 beneath the ashes. 
 
 At the beginning of this century Napoleon wishing 
 to take possession of the country, used the following 
 words : '' Spain is a country of monks and priests, a 
 country of cowards ; I shall make an easy conquest 
 of it." 
 
 History relates what took place: the Spanish people 
 at that trying epoch of their national history proved 
 themselves the worthy descendants of the conquerors 
 
32 Causes of the Civil a7id 
 
 of the Mussulmans ; Catholic Spain inflicted the first 
 mortal blow on the absolutism of Napoleon, at that 
 time threatening the whole continent of Europe. 
 
 Since then the different shades of the liberal party 
 who have held power, have reduced the country of Isa- 
 bella the Catholic to its present condition. 
 
 The mass of the Catholic population have resisted 
 in our day, and we have an intimate conviction that 
 Spain, brought up and nurtured by the maternal 
 hand of the Church, will become once more in Its 
 religious unity one of the first nations of the human 
 race. Its literature excels that of every Protestant 
 country In the world in depth. In moral riches, and 
 aesthetic splendour ; its painters and architects figure 
 in the first rank in the Pantheon of artists ; and it 
 possesses a body of clergy whose bishops astounded 
 the assembled Fathers at the CEcumenical Council of 
 1870 by their prodigious knowledge of science and 
 theology. It possesses monuments which are like 
 poems in stone ; it has held the commerce of the entire 
 universe In its power ; it has spread humanity through- 
 out half the world, and has alone founded more colonies 
 than every other nation put together. Many persons 
 allege that Its present diminished power and grandeur 
 is the result of its close alliance with the Church, but 
 
Material Prosperity of Nations. 3 3 
 
 the assertion is an historical absurdity ; it is the 
 liberal party, with their self-complacent spirit of dicta- 
 tion and their enlightened following of socialists and 
 atheists, who have momentarily arrested civil growth in 
 a land so rich and fruitful, in the country of the Astu- 
 rian Goths, of the Cid and the Romanceros, of Murillo, 
 Velasquez, Lope de Vega, of Calderon and Cervantes, 
 in the adopted country of Christopher Columbus and 
 Fernando Cortez, in the land of the burial-place of 
 Charles v., and the cradle of St. Ignatius and Balmez. 
 We take the following quotation from an excellent 
 work of this latter, entitled, '* El Protestantismo com- 
 parado con el Catolicismol' ^ " Protestantism and Catho- 
 licism compared together : " — 
 
 " We may expect much from the right instinct of the Spanish 
 nation, from her proverbial gravity, which so many misfortunes 
 have only augmented, and from that fact which teaches her so 
 well how to discern the true path to happiness, by rendering her 
 deaf to the insidious suggestions of those who seek to lead her 
 astray. Although for so many years, owing to a fatal combina- 
 tion of circumstances and a want of harmony between the social 
 and political order, Spain has not been able to obtain a govern- 
 ment which understands her feelings and instincts, which follows 
 her inclinations, and promotes her prosperity, we still cherish 
 the hope that the day will come when from her own bosom, so 
 
 ^ This work has been translated into Enghsh under the title 
 of " European Civilization." Published by Burns and Gates. 
 
 D 
 
34 Causes of the Civil and 
 
 fertile in future life, will come forth the harmony which she seeks 
 and the equilibrium which she has lost. 
 
 In the meantime it is of the highest importance that all men 
 who have Spanish hearts in their breasts, and who do not wish 
 to see the vitals of their country torn to pieces, should unite and 
 act in concert to preser\^e her from the genius of evil. 
 
 Their unanimity will prevent the seeds of perpetual discord 
 from being scattered on our soil — will ward off this additional 
 calamity, and will preserve from destruction those precious 
 germs whence may arise with renovated vigour our civilization, 
 which has been so much injured by disastrous events. 
 
 The soul is overwhelmed with painful apprehensions at the 
 thought that a day may come when religious unity will be 
 banished from among us — that unity which is identified with our 
 habits, our customs, our manners, our laws ; which guarded the 
 cradle of our monarchy in the cavern of Covadonga, and which 
 was the emblem on our standard during a struggle of eight 
 centuries against the formidable Crescent. 
 
 That unity which developed and illustrated our civilization in 
 times of the greatest difficulty ; that unity which followed our 
 terrible tercios, when they imposed silence upon Europe ; which 
 led our sailors when they discovered the New World, and guided 
 them when they for the first time made the circuit of the globe ; 
 that unity which sustains our soldiers in their most heroic ex- 
 ploits, and which, at a recent period, gave the climax to their 
 many glorious deeds in the downfall of Napoleon. 
 
 You who condemn so rashly the work of ages, you who offer 
 so many insults to the Spanish nation, and who treat as bar- 
 barism and ignorance the regulating principle of our civilization, 
 do you know what it is you insult 1 
 
 Do you know what inspired the genius of Gonsalva, of Ferdi- 
 nando Cortez, of the conqueror of Lepanto ? 
 
 Do not the shades of Garcilazo, of Herrera, of Ercilla, of 
 
Material Prosperity of Nations. 35 
 
 Fray Luis de Leon, of Cervantes, of Lope de Vega, inspire you 
 with any respect ? Can you venture to break the tie which con- 
 nects us with them, to make us the unworthy posterity of these 
 great men ? Do you wish to place an impassable barrier be- 
 tween their faith and ours — between their manners and ours — 
 to make us destroy all our traditions, and to forget our most 
 inspiring recollections ? 
 
 Do you wish to preserve the great and august monuments of 
 our ancestors' piety among us only as a severe and eloquent 
 reproach ? 
 
 Will you consent to see dried up the most abundant foun- 
 tains to which we can have recourse, to revive literature, to 
 strengthen science, to reorganize legislation, to re-establish the 
 spirit of nationality, to restore our glory, and replace this nation 
 in the high position which her virtues merit, by restoring to her 
 the peace and happiness which she seeks with so much toil, and 
 which her heart is so sadly in need of?" 
 
 Catholic Spain may again be great and powerful 
 when Lutheran Prussia shall have ceased to exist, or 
 shall have been reduced to the original limits of the 
 margravate of Brandenbourg. 
 
 Who can tell ? ^ Herr Baumstark, a man of note, 
 formerly a judge in the Grand Duchy of Baden, has 
 written an interesting work " on Spain and the faults 
 
 ' An old prophecy is extant in Germany that Prussia would 
 develop to a wonderful extent, and would finally be reduced to 
 her original limits. 
 
 '^ This work, originally published at Wurzburg, has been trans- 
 lated into French by the Baron de Lamerzau, under the title of 
 *' Une exctirsion en EspagneP Toba, Paris, 1872, i vol. in 8vo. 
 
36 Causes of the Civil and 
 
 committed by various bad governments in that country, 
 from which the following is a quotation : — 
 
 " I have an intimate conviction that Spain, so far from ap- 
 proaching anything that would resemble a state of decline, is on 
 the eve of a considerable and glorious development. 
 
 Even if the worst were to happen, if the torch of civil war 
 were again to envelop the country in its flame — if the party 
 of destruction and negation were to attain temporary power^ 
 such occurrences would not alter my convictions. 
 
 Events of this sort may be hard and cruel for the in- 
 dividuals who have to suffer as victims, but it is only in 
 external appearance that they hinder the real increase of de- 
 velopment. 
 
 The Spanish nation, endowed with an enormous amount of 
 moral and intellectual power, as yet intact, has known, whilst 
 adopting what is really good in the modern form of European 
 civilization, how to preserve itself from the greater number of 
 corruptions which flow from it elsewhere. 
 
 It is this national trait of character that makes me feel con- 
 vinced that the future of this people will be great and brilliant, 
 and that what is necessary will come to pass. 
 
 If anyone wishes to avail himself of the substance of the 
 truths I have brought back from Spain, he will find them con- 
 centrated in the following propositions, which contain their 
 quintessence : — 
 
 (i.) The Spanish government is not in a state of decline or 
 degradation, but is, on the contrary, entirely occupied with its 
 intellectual and material progress, and offers the most sanguine 
 hopes of success. 
 
 (2.) The solid basis of this development, if it is to result in a 
 durable prosperity, must continue to be Catholicism and the 
 monarchical system. 
 
Material Prosperity of Nations. 3 7 
 
 (3.) With regard to arts and literature, Spain can well bear 
 comparison with any nation in the world. 
 
 (4.) As to ourselves, the children of central Europe, we might 
 to our own advantage take lessons from the Spaniards, and 
 should find ourselves in many points their inferiors." 
 
 In the year 1723 the population of Spain amounted 
 to 7,625,000 souls ; which number increased to 
 14,937,837 in the year 1857, to 15,151,677 in i860, 
 and to 16,732,052 in the year 1868. In 1850 the 
 value of general commerce reached the sum of 1,150 
 millions of reals. In i860 it had become 2,584 mil- 
 lions, and in the year 1867, 2,937 millions. 
 
 As regards the moral civilization of a nation, we do 
 not attach a sovereign importance to statistics of this 
 sort, but in contrast to the assertions of the liberals, 
 they assume an eloquent significance. Until the 
 period of the Renaissance the republics of the Penin- 
 sula were not politically inferior to England. From 
 that epoch, which commenced sooner in Italy than 
 elsewhere, they were subjected, it is true, to the 
 pernicious influences of doctrines which are now 
 called " liberal," and of which Machiavelli was one 
 of the most celebrated theorists. 
 
 Religious manners and customs tempered to a great 
 extent the fatal consequences of the system, but when 
 
38 Causes of the Civil and 
 
 one realizes the fact that the Popes of that period, in 
 their capacity as temporal sovereigns, for a time 
 encouraged and applauded it, one is the more con- 
 strained to admire the divine structure of the Church 
 which has preserved incorruptible the deposit of the 
 eternal promises. 
 
 A treatise ^ has been written on the cities and 
 republics of Italy, in . which the causes that led to 
 the premature decline of free institutions have been 
 investigated. 
 
 No one, we presume, would be so unreasonable as 
 to deny that any improvement was effected by the 
 Renaissance, or to disparage the works of Michael 
 Angelo, but it may be as well to point out for the 
 benefit of some of our readers, that many of the 
 distinguished Latin artists of that period, who find 
 favour in the eyes of modern liberals, were, though 
 Catholics, imbued with much that was to be deplored 
 in the exaggerated return to Pagan art. 
 
 There is little to admire in the various Italian 
 governments that have existed since the Renaissance ; 
 the true Catholic ideal is neither the dictatorship of 
 
 ' See " History of the Cities of Lombardy, from their origin 
 until the end of the Thirteenth Century," by M. le Baron de 
 Haulleville. Didier, Paris, 1857. 2 vols, in 8vo. 
 
Material Prosperity of Nations. 39 
 
 the Medicis, the mild liberaHsm of the Florentine 
 House of Lorraine, nor the refined absolutism of the 
 Neapolitan Bourbons. 
 
 Nevertheless, Italy, as a whole, was not less mate- 
 rially successful than Sweden or Prussia, whilst as 
 regards the spiritual world, it shone with a splendour 
 that no one can deny. The courts of Italy were un- 
 doubtedly superior in literary and artistic attainments 
 to those of Stockholm, Copenhagen, Potsdam, and 
 London. The patrimony of St. Peter, the civil territory 
 of the Roman Church, the most ancient sovereignty of 
 Europe, which was to Europe what Washington is to the 
 American Confederation, preserved until the advent 
 of a French army of " liberators " at the close of last 
 century, a model type of self-government , which the 
 anti-Catholic " civilization " of the nineteenth century 
 has completely changed.^ 
 
 From the fourteenth century until the arrival of 
 French revolutionary troops in the year 1790, Romagna 
 and Bologna were an oasis of political felicity in 
 Europe. It is true that these places did not enjoy 
 " liberty of worship " in the sense in which modern 
 
 ' Burke speaks in high praise of the self-government in the 
 Pontifical States during the reign of Pius VI. (Works, vol. v. 
 
40 Causes of the Civil and 
 
 liberals understand the term, but will anyone presume 
 to assert that " liberty of worship " was tolerated in 
 Protestant countries such as Sweden, Prussia, or 
 England, or that anyone was permitted to criticize 
 the established churches in those countries ? 
 
 Did there exist in anyone of them the least sem- 
 blance of religious liberty ? 
 
 Is it not well known that the only uncontested liberty 
 was that of reviling and persecuting the Catholic 
 Church ? 
 
 In Prussia and in Sweden a species of religious 
 tyranny prevailed, which was redundant with hypo- 
 crisy and brutality. In England, religious liberty only 
 dates as far back as 1829, when Catholic emancipation 
 was extorted from a reluctant government. Not many 
 years ago a Catholic priest in the country of Lord Ma- 
 caulay and Mr. Gladstone was unable to show himself 
 in public without rendering himself liable to criminal 
 penalties, and to this day the laws against the Jesuits 
 have never been repealed. Unless, then, "civilization" 
 consists in an entire negation of the Catholic Church, 
 and unless there is no real truth in the principles of 
 political liberty, Italy during the last few centuries 
 cannot be considered as inferior to Protestant nations, 
 but should rather take precedence of them. 
 
Material Prosperity of Nations, 41 
 
 With this picture of the Catholic Spaniards and 
 Italians on the one hand, and of Prussian, Swedish, 
 and English Protestants on the other, let us simply 
 ask the question, which of the two groups of nations 
 most truly represent the noble and fruitful ideas that 
 have occupied mankind since the passion and death 
 of our Lord Jesus Christ ? 
 
 We will only add the fact that from the period of 
 the Protestant Reformation till the year 1848, the 
 Prussian territory (the stronghold of Lutheran tenets) 
 was the least "civilized" of all nations according to the 
 ideas preconceived by the modern school of liberals, 
 and that were it not for her splendid military achieve- 
 ments in 1866 against Austria, and in 1871 against 
 France, the greater number of that school of thought 
 would not admit without protest the exaggerated 
 praises that have recently been bestowed upon her 
 from various quarters. 
 
 A great deal has been said with reference to Ireland 
 and Scotland, which, though plausible, will not bear 
 investigation. 
 
 The following quotation is from the pen of M. de 
 Laveleye : — 
 
 " It is admitted that the Scotch and Irish are of the same 
 origin. Both have become subject to the EngUsh yoke. Until 
 
42 Causes of the Civil and 
 
 the sixteenth century Ireland was much, more civilized than 
 Scotland ; and during the first part of the Middle Ages Ireland 
 was a focus of civihzation, whilst Scotland was still a den of 
 barbarism. Since the Scotch have embraced the reformed reli- 
 gion, they have outrun even the English. The climate and the 
 nature of the soil prevent Scotland from being as rich as Eng- 
 land, but Macaulay proves that since the seventeenth century 
 the Scotch have in every way surpassed the English. 
 
 Ireland, on the other hand, devoted to Ultramontanism, is 
 poor, miserable, and agitated by the spirit of rebellion ; she 
 seems incapable of raising herself by her own strength. 
 
 What a contrast, even in Ireland, between the exclusively 
 Catholic Connaught and the province of Ulster, where Protes- 
 tantism prevails ! Ulster is enriched by industry, Connaught 
 presents nought but a picture of desolation," &c. &c. 
 
 The idea of comparison has evidently been borrowed 
 from Macaulay ; but though that great writer takes 
 the part of his fellow Protestants, he never allows 
 himself to be carried away by sentiment, but writes 
 with great reserve and fairness. 
 
 Thus he asserts that it is difficult to decide whether 
 England owes most to the Catholic religion or to the 
 Reformation. 
 
 The picture he draws of Ireland and Scotland at 
 the death of Queen EHzabeth bears no resemblance 
 whatever to the description of the same by M. de 
 Laveleye, as the reader can judge for himself. 
 
 The following are his words : — 
 
 I 
 
Material Prosperity of Nations, 43 
 
 ''''In the year 1603 the great Queen died. That year is on 
 many accounts one of the most important epochs in our history. 
 It was then that both Scotland and Ireland became parts of the 
 same empire with England. 
 
 Both Scotland and Ireland, indeed, had been subjugated by 
 the Plantagenets, but neither country had been patient under the 
 yoke. 
 
 Scotland had, with heroic energy, vindicated her indepen- 
 dence — had from the time of Robert Bruce been a separate 
 kingdom, and was now joined to the southern part of the island 
 in a manner which rather gratified than wounded her national 
 pride. 
 
 Ireland had never, since the days of Henry II., been able to 
 expel the foreign invaders, but she had struggled against them 
 long and fiercely. 
 
 During the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries the English 
 power in that island was constantly declining, and in the days of 
 Henry VII. had sunk to the lowest point. 
 
 The Irish dominions of that prince consisted only of the 
 counties of Dublin and Louth, of some parts of Meath and Kil- 
 dare, and of a few sea-ports scattered along the coast. A large 
 portion even of Leinster was not yet divided into counties. 
 
 Munster, Ulster, and Connaught were ruled by petty sove- 
 reigns, partly Celts and partly degenerate Normans, who had 
 forgotten their origin and had adopted the Celtic language and 
 manners. But during the sixteenth century the English power 
 had made great progress. The half-savage chieftains who 
 reigned beyond the pale had yielded one after another to the 
 lieutenants of the Tudors. At length, a few weeks before the 
 death of Elizabeth, the conquest, which had been begun more 
 than four hundred years before by Strongbow, was completed by 
 Mountjoy. 
 
 Scarcely had James I. mounted the English throne when the 
 
44 Causes of the Civil and 
 
 last O'Donnell and O'Neill who have held the rank of indepen- 
 dent princes kissed his hand at Whitehall. Thenceforward his 
 writs ran, and his judges held assizes in every- part of Ireland, 
 and the English law superseded the customs which had pre- 
 vailed among the aboriginal tribes. 
 
 In extent Scotland and Ireland were nearly equal to England, 
 but were much less thickly peopled than England, and were very 
 far behind her in wealth and civilization. 
 
 Scotland had been kept back by the sterility of her soil, and, 
 in the midst of light, the thick darkness of the. middle ages still 
 rested on Ireland. 
 
 The population of Scotland, with the exception of the Celtic 
 tribes, which were thinly scattered over the Hebrides and over 
 the mountainous parts of the northern shires, was of the same 
 blood with the population of England, and spoke a tongue which 
 did not differ from the purest Enghsh more than the dialects of 
 Somersetshire and Lancashire differed from each other. 
 
 In Ireland, on the contrary-, the population, with the exception 
 of the small English colony near the coast, was Celtic, and still 
 kept the Celtic speech and manners. 
 
 In national courage and intelligence both the nations which 
 now became connected with England ranked high. 
 
 In perseverance, in self-command, in forethought, in all the 
 virtues which conduce to success in life, the Scots have never 
 been surpassed. 
 
 The Irish, on the other hand, were distinguished by qualities 
 which tend to make men interesting rather than prosperous. 
 They were an ardent and impetuous race, easily moved to 
 tears or laughter, to fury^ or to love. 
 
 Alone among the nations of northern Europe they had the 
 susceptibility, the vivacity, the natural turn for acting and 
 rhetoric, which are indigenous on the shores of the Mediter- 
 ranean Sea. 
 
Material P^^osperity of Nations. 45 
 
 In mental culture Scotland had an indisputable superiority. 
 
 Though that kingdom was then the poorest in Christendom, it 
 already vied in every branch of learning with the most favoured 
 countries. 
 
 Scotsmen, whose dwellings and whose food were as wretched 
 as those of the Icelanders of our day, wrote Latin verse with 
 more than the delicacy of Vida, and made discoveries in science 
 which would have added to the renown of Galileo. Ireland 
 could boast of no Buchanan or Napier. 
 
 The genius with which her aboriginal inhabitants were largely 
 endowed showed itself as yet only in ballads, which, wild and 
 rugged as they were, seemed to the judging eye of Spenser to 
 contain a portion of the pure gold of poetry. 
 
 Scotland, in becoming part of the British monarchy, preserved 
 all her dignity. Having during many generations courageously 
 withstood the English arms, she was now joined to her stronger 
 neighbour on the most honourable terms. 
 
 She gave a king instead of receiving one. She retained her 
 own constitution and laws. 
 
 Her tribunals and parliaments remained entirely independent 
 of the tribunals and parliaments which sat at Westminster. 
 The administration of Scotland was in Scottish hands, for no 
 Englishman had any motive to emigrate northward, and to 
 contend with the shrewdest and most pertinacious of all races 
 for what was to be scraped together in the poorest of all trea- 
 suries. 
 
 Meanwhile Scottish adventurers poured southwards, and ob- 
 tained in all the walks of life a prosperity which excited much 
 envy, but which was in general only the just reward of prudence 
 and industry. 
 
 Nevertheless, Scotland by no means escaped the fate ordained 
 for every country which is connected but not incorporated with 
 another country of greater resources. Though in name an in- 
 
46 Causes of the Civil and 
 
 dependent kingdom, she was, during more than a century, really- 
 treated in many respects as a subject province. 
 
 Ireland was undisguisedly governed as a dependency won by 
 the sword. Her mde national institutions had perished. 
 
 The English colonists submitted to the dictation of the mother 
 country, without whose support they could not exist, and indem- 
 nified themselves by trampling on the people among whom they 
 had settled. 
 
 The parliaments which met at Dublin could pass no law which 
 had not previously been approved by the English Privy Council. 
 
 The authority of the English legislature extended over Ire- 
 land. 
 
 The executive administration was intrusted to men taken 
 either from England or from the English pale, and in either 
 case regarded as foreigners, and even as enemies, by the Celtic 
 population. 
 
 But the circumstance which more than any other has made 
 Ireland to differ from Scotland remains to be noticed. 
 
 Scotland was Protestant. 
 
 In no part of Europe had the movement of the popular mind 
 against the Roman Catholic Church been so rapid and violent. 
 
 The reformers had vanquished, deposed, and imprisoned their 
 idolatrous sovereign.- They would not endure even such a com- 
 promise as had been effected in England. 
 
 They had established the Calvinistic doctrine, discipline, and 
 worship, and they made little distinction between popery and 
 prelacy, between the Mass and the Book of Common Prayer. 
 
 Unfortunately for Scotland, the prince whom she sent to 
 govern a fairer inheritance had been so much annoyed by the 
 pertinacity with which her theologians had asserted against him 
 the privileges of the synod and the pulpit, that he hated the 
 ecclesiastical polity to which she was fondly attached as much 
 as it was in his effeminate nature to hate anything,. and had no 
 
Material Prosperity of Nations. 47 
 
 sooner mounted the English throne than he began to show an 
 intolerant zeal for the government and ritual of the English 
 Church. 
 
 The Irish were the only people of northern Europe who had 
 remained true to the old religion. 
 
 This is to be partly ascribed to the circumstance that they 
 were some centuries behind their neighbours in knowledge. 
 
 But other causes had co-operated. 
 
 The Reformation had been a national as well as a moral 
 revolt. 
 
 It had been not only an insurrection of the laity against the 
 clergy, but also an insurrection of all the branches of the great 
 German race against an alien domination. 
 
 It is a most significant circumstance that no large society of 
 which the tongue is not Teutonic has ever turned Protestant, 
 and that wherever a language derived from that of ancient Rome 
 is spoken, the religion of modern Rome to this day prevails. 
 
 The patriotism of the Irish had taken a peculiar direction. 
 
 The object of their animosity was not Rome, but England, 
 and they had especial reason to abhor those English sovereigns 
 who had been the chiefs of the great schism, Henry the Eighth 
 and Elizabeth. 
 
 During the vain struggle which two generations of Milesian 
 princes maintained against the Tudors, religious enthusiasm and 
 national enthusiasm became inseparably blended in the minds 
 of the vanquished race. 
 
 The new feud of Protestant and Papist inflamed the old feud 
 of Saxon and Celt. 
 
 The English conquerors meanwhile neglected all legitimate 
 means of conversion. 
 
 No care was taken to provide the vanquished nation with 
 instructors capable of making themselves understood. 
 
 No translation of the Bible was put forth in the Erse language. 
 
48 Cutis es of the Civil and 
 
 The government contented itself with setting up a vast hier- 
 archy of Protestant archbishops, bishops, and rectors, who did 
 nothing, and who for doing nothing were paid out of the spoils 
 of a Church loved and revered by the great body of the people." 
 
 Macaulay has by this style of writing demolished 
 more than one attack that has been directed against 
 the Catholic Church. 
 
 As regards historical facts, the infamies perpetrated 
 on the heroic people of Ireland for the space of 300 
 years under " Protestant civilization " have been fre- 
 quently exposed by Protestant Englishmen who look 
 back with shame and disgust^ on the proceedings 
 of their ancestors. Many excellent works on Irish 
 history were published in the year 1875, in connection 
 with the celebration of the O'Connell centenary in 
 Dublin,- which throw floods of light on the sufferings 
 of the people. 
 
 The Bill for the Emancipation of Catholics through- 
 out Great Britain dates from the year 1829 ; O'Connell 
 was the first Catholic who sat in the House of Com- 
 mons at Westminster, and the first Catholic Lord 
 Mayor of Dublin. 
 
 ^ See Lecky's " Leaders of Public Opinion in Ireland," page 
 124.' Longmans, London. 
 
 ' " History of Ireland," " Life of the Liberator," &c., by Miss 
 Cusack, and others. 
 
Matci'ial Prospo'ity of Nations. 49 
 
 Before that time even' government that held power 
 in England, whether that of the Tudors, the Stuarts, 
 Cromwell, the Puritans, the House of Orange or that 
 of Hanover, mav be said to have striven to emulate 
 the other in brutality and cruelt}' towards the Irish ; 
 the motto of many of them being not only oppression 
 and confiscation of goods, but complete extermination 
 of the population. Cromwell and his unblemished 
 Puritans made themselves particularly remarkable in 
 the work of '* civilization," but it will be sufficient for 
 our purpose to recite a few historical facts relating to 
 Ireland. 
 
 Elizabeth the Virgin Queen confiscated 600,000 
 acres, and James I. 2,000,000 acres of Irish soil ; the 
 government of the latter also caused a return of landed 
 property in Ireland to be drawn up, to prove that 
 nearly the whole of the country- was ih actual pos- 
 session of the Crown, and that Connaught should be 
 held as a fief of the Cro\\'n. 
 
 Steps of a similar character were taken under 
 Charles L, and the Irish people know with what suc- 
 cess. The Cromwellian army of " saints " perpetrated 
 such horrible atrocities throughout the entire countr}* 
 that the remembrance of the maledictions of the suf- 
 ferers is still extant among the people. The Catho- 
 
 E 
 
50 Catises of the Civil and 
 
 lies who escaped massacre were sent to America, or 
 driven into Connaught. " To Connaught or to Hell," 
 such was the language used by these founders of Pro- 
 testant " civilization^ 
 
 Under the reign of William of Orange the Irish 
 Catholics retained possession of no more than the 
 tenth part of their soil. 
 
 From the downfall of the Stuarts the actual system 
 of tyrannical oppression and cruelty was abandoned, 
 to give place to the work of lawyers. Hypocrisy 
 built up a monument of injustice which drew the 
 following cry of indignation from the Protestant 
 historian Gervinus {^^ Geschichte des XIX ten Jahrhiin- 
 dert,'' \o\. vii. p. 438) : — 
 
 " A system of oppression opposed to all that is natural was 
 invented, the plan of which was to impoverish and barbarize the 
 masses of the people, in exterminating either the Catholic Church 
 or the actual Catholic population itself." 
 
 In the years 1663 and 1666 the Irish people were 
 forbidden to export their cattle, because their agricul- 
 ture was considered to be improving, and in 1699 
 the exportation of wool was prohibited, because these 
 unfortunate people were beginning to rival the English 
 in this branch of trade. 
 
 No "papist" could hold any office under the State, 
 
Material P^^osperity of Nations, 5 1 
 
 or acquire landed property ; no papist employer could 
 have more than two apprentices, for fear that Irish 
 industry should gain too much power. 
 
 The English government, in order to impoverish 
 Ireland as much as possible, imposed upon Catholics 
 the obligation of an equal division of property amongst 
 the children — a system practised, since the revolution 
 of 1798, in France and Belgium, but one that has 
 never been admitted in England or the United States 
 of America. 
 
 Burke declared that it was a system calculated to 
 ruin the small families, without their possessing the 
 means to recover themselves by industry and intellect, 
 since they were prohibited from retaining any kind of 
 property, and according to him the whole code of 
 Protestant despotism was so well organized to oppress 
 the people and disfigure even human nature itself, 
 that nothing equal to it was ever invented by the 
 most consummate hypocrisy. 
 
 Until the reign of George III. Cathohcs were for- 
 bidden to erect schools, and the parents of the great 
 Daniel O'Connell were obliged to send their son to 
 Liege and Douai in order to find a Catholic school in 
 which instruction might be given to the future liberator 
 of their country. 
 
5 2 Causes of the Civil mid 
 
 It was only in this reign that the law was abolished 
 which prohibited an Irishman from keeping a horse 
 exceeding the value of ^5 in his possession.^ 
 
 The entire body of the Protestant clergy op- 
 posed Catholic Emancipation with the greatest 
 
 vigour.- 
 
 Although some partial concessions had been made 
 to the Catholics by the Irish Parliament at the close 
 of last century, the feeling was strong against admit- 
 ting them to equal rights with their Protestant country- 
 men, which showed itself in the fact that the corpora- 
 tions of the principal cities of an essentially Catholic 
 country were almost exclusively governed by Protes- 
 tants. Mr. Lecky declares that for forty-seven years 
 after Catholics had been made eligible, not one was 
 elected into the corporation of Dublin. 
 
 Here we have enough to prove the paramount 
 injustice of the criticisms of the modern liberals. 
 Are we not right when we accuse them of allowing 
 themselves to be carried away by religious prejudice, 
 when they make the amazing statement that it was 
 the Catholic Church that rendered Ireland miserable, 
 
 ' See Lecky's " Leaders of Public Opinion in Ireland." Long- 
 mans, London. 
 
 •' Mullala's " Irish Affairs," vol. ii. 
 
 I 
 
Mateinal Prosperity of Nations. 53 
 
 and that it was Protestantism that had made England 
 great and powerful ? 
 
 We cite the following page of history from '' Le 
 Fran^ais" of Paris as the testimony of an outsider to 
 Protestant civilization in Ireland : ^ — 
 
 " In the year 1828 O'Connell considered the moment for action 
 on the part of the Irish Catholics had arrived. 
 
 The question at stake was that of obtaining for Catholics the 
 right of a seat in the House of Commons, and the right to occupy 
 political and civil posts. 
 
 O'Connell determined to present himself to the electors of the 
 County Clare, in order to force open the doors of that parlia- 
 ment which had hitherto been so obstinately kept closed. 
 
 At first sight it might appear that nothing would be easier 
 than his return by the electors of the county, since the great 
 majority of the people were Catholics, although the difficulty of 
 admission into the House of Commons might be great ; but it 
 must be borne in mind that at that period only those who paid 
 a certain fixed amount of taxes had the right of exercising a vote, 
 and that nearly all persons of this class were Protestants. 
 
 The only Catholic electors were the tenants and small farmers, 
 who were completely at the mercy of their Protestant landlords. 
 
 The tenants had no natural inherent rights in the soil ; the 
 whim of the landlord, or rather of his agent (as the landlord in 
 most cases did not reside in the country), was of itself sufficient 
 for their eviction. 
 
 Eviction, be it clearly understood, implied ruin. The tenant 
 received no indemnity for the improvements he made. He 
 originally received a piece of bare ground, on which he had to 
 build himself a house, and the day of his expulsion saw him, 
 
 * "Z(? Franqais''^ of the 3rd August, 1875. 
 
54 Causes of the Civil and 
 
 therefore, severed from his home. This was the work of the 
 terrible crow-bar brigade. 
 
 Nothing is more heartrending or deplorable than the history 
 of these evictions. 
 
 Irishmen and Irishwomen have more than once evinced in 
 such cases a patience, the secret of which can alone be found in 
 their strong religious faith. 
 
 Let us give an instance of what we mean. An old couple 
 brutally driven away from their cabin were lamenting their for- 
 lorn condition. 
 
 ' Ah !' said the old woman, 'here I am at the age of seventy-four 
 years left without a shelter in the world ; I who have never done 
 anyone any ill, and who have often given hospitality to others. 
 What have I done to be treated in this way?' 'Hold your 
 peace,' said the old man. ' Hold your peace. Our blessed Lord 
 suffered more than that in His Passion.' 
 
 Evictions were by no means isolated or extraordinary occur- 
 rences. 
 
 In the space of ten years, from 1841 to 1851, 282,000 houses 
 were in this way destroyed. In 1849 more than 50,000 families 
 were driven away. 
 
 It is impossible to travel over certain parts of Ireland "without 
 meeting at every step traces of ruins. 
 
 The excesses were so great that an Englishman and a Protes- 
 tant (Mr. Bright) was able to say, '// is hnpossible i?i travelling- 
 through certain districts of Ireland 7iot to feel that enormous 
 crimes have been committed by the various govei'uments to which 
 the country has beeti subjected.^ 
 
 It will be seen, then, how difficult was the situation of the 
 Catholic electors in regard to their Protestant landlords. 
 
 Every vote for a Catholic (and the vote was not given secretly) 
 brought with it evictioti as an inevitable consequence ; that is to 
 say, ruin, and perhaps death. 
 
Material Prosperity of Nations, 5 5 
 
 Until the foundation of the great Catholic association the 
 farmer used to vote entirely at the will of his landlord. After 
 the formation of the association, feeling himself supported and 
 encouraged, his patriotism became inflamed, and he was inspired 
 with veritable acts of heroism. What else but heroism can we 
 call the conduct of a poor peasant, the father of a large family, 
 in prison for a few debts contracted towards his landlord, who 
 acted as follows when he was promised freedom, provided he 
 voted against O'Connell : — 
 
 A struggle ensues in his breast, since he sees on the one side 
 his country, and on the other his family dependent on him for 
 their daily food. He accepts the bargain, and goes to the 
 polling booth with faltering step and heavy brow. His wife in 
 the crowd sees him, and divining what has happened throws 
 herself upon him, and forgetful of her starving children piteously 
 asking for bread, exclaims, ' Wretched man / what are you 
 doing? Remember your soul and your coiaitrfs liberty.^ The 
 peasant understands his wife's language, votes for O'Connell, 
 and returns to prison. 
 
 When O'Connell announced his intention of presenting him- 
 self as candidate for the county of Clare, the excitement in 
 Ireland was intense. Preparations were made on both sides for 
 a battle which each party felt must be decisive. On the one side 
 was the government, the army, the wealthy landed proprietors ; 
 on the other a multitude of peasants (many of them in rags), the 
 Catholic clergy, and the newly-formed association of O'Connell. 
 
 The battle was sharp and decisive, and the Protestant party 
 soon perceived they were completely beaten. All the tenantry 
 abandoned their landlords and voted for O'Connell, notwith- 
 standing every threat of eviction or punishment. 
 
 The agitator was elected by an overwhelming majority, and, 
 surrounded by 60,000 men, carrying aloft large branches in token 
 of triumph, gave vent to the following cry of victory : — 
 
56 Causes of the Civil and 
 
 ' The men of Clare know that the only basis of liberty is reli- 
 gion; they have triumphed because the voice they raised on 
 behalf of their country had first raised itself in prayer to God. 
 Songs of liberty may now make themselves heard throughout our 
 country, whose sound will travel through hill and valley with 
 voice of thunder, and be wafted along the course of the rivers 
 and strea?ns, proclaiming far and wide that Ireland at length is 
 freer'' 
 
 The Duke of Wellington used the following language 
 from his seat in the House of Lords concerning the 
 Irish shortly before Catholic Emancipation : — 
 
 " It is known to your lordships that at least half of the troops 
 I commanded in the various campaigns undertaken for the 
 security and independence of our country were composed of 
 Roman Cathohcs. In recaUing this fact I am persuaded that 
 every other argument in their favour will be superfluous. 
 
 We must all recognize that without the blood of the Irish 
 Catholics, and without their courage, we could not have gained 
 our brilliant victories." 
 
 Connaught, which produced the celebrated Father 
 Mathew, one of the great men of this century, is not 
 in such a miserable condition as is represented ; for 
 instance, crimes against property are proportionately 
 to its population less numerous than in Ulster. 
 
 The relative poverty of Connaught is almost ex- 
 clusively the result of English misrule and tyranny. 
 
 Protestants are the last people who should presume 
 to talk of the poverty or misery of the Irish peasants. 
 
Material Pj'osperity of Nations. 57 
 
 What would be thought of a Turkish Pasha reproach- 
 ing the Sclaves subject to the dominion of Turkey 
 with their poverty, whilst the Turks themselves were 
 living in ease and affluence ? 
 
 What of the Russians reproaching the Poles subject 
 to the dominion of the Czar, with their state of desti- 
 tution, when the Russians themselves were indulging 
 in every luxury and excess ? 
 
 What of a judge upbraiding a man who had been 
 robbed, with the condition in which the robber had 
 left him ? 
 
 The relative well-being of Ulster is the fruit of an 
 execrable amount of violence. 
 
 The plan of the plantation was agreed upon in 
 1609. It was the old plan attempted before, though 
 with less show of legality. The simple object was to 
 expel the natives and extirpate the Catholic religion. 
 The Protestant University of Dublin obtained 3,000 
 acres in Ulster, and 400,000 acres of tillage land were 
 partitioned out between English and Scotch pro- 
 prietors. 
 
 A Presbyterian minister, whose father was one of 
 the planters, thus describes ' the men who came to 
 
 * MS. History by Rev. A. Stuart, quoted in Reid's " History 
 of the Presbyterian Church," vol. i. p. 96. 
 
58 Causes of the Civil a7id 
 
 establish English rule and root out Popery : '' From 
 Scotland came many and from England not a few, yet 
 all of them generally the scum of both nations, who 
 from debt, or making and fleeing from justice or seek- 
 ing shelter, came hither, hoping to be without fear of 
 man's justice, In a land where there was nothing or 
 but little as yet of the fear of God .... Most of the 
 people are void of all godliness .... on all hands 
 atheism increases and disregard of God ; iniquity 
 abounds, with contention, fighting, murder, and 
 adultery." 
 
 The natives were forcibly expelled from their homes, 
 deprived of their wealth, and treated with every indig- 
 nity. The impious soldiery pursued the defenceless 
 priests by night and day throughout the province, 
 whilst they entered private houses at discretion and 
 executed whom they pleased. The Bishop of Down 
 and Connor was executed In Dublin by an English 
 culprit under sentence of death, the only person who 
 could be found to do the bloody deed. 
 
 The men whose lives the Irish people have always 
 held more sacred than those of their ancient chiefs, 
 were daily slaughtered before their eyes, and cruelties 
 were perpetrated that would have excited the indig- 
 nation of the heathen. 
 
Material Prosperity of Nations, 59 
 
 We shall refer, however, to Ulster in another part 
 of this work. 
 
 M. de Laveleye asserts that " since the Scotch 
 adopted the Reformation, they have surpassed in civili- 
 zation and wealth the English themselves." If the 
 English have been themselves therefore distanced 
 by the Scotch, it is evident that the Reformation can- 
 not be the cause of their progress, unless he means 
 to assert that the English nation is still too Catholic, 
 and that ''progress " is only obtained in the direct ratio 
 of the removal of a people from a positive basis of 
 Christianity. 
 
 The writer should also inform us to which Refor- 
 mation he alludes, for Scotland of all countries, with 
 the exception, perhaps, of the United States of 
 America, is the one most broken up and divided by 
 religious factions. 
 
 We shall have occasion later on to mention Scotch 
 Calvinism, and shall then speak of the shameful des- 
 potism which the sectarian spirit inflicted on Scot- 
 land from the era of the Reformation ; for the 
 present we will merely state the fact that there is no 
 religious absurdity that has not found some adherents 
 and supporters in the country north of the Tweed. 
 
 Will anyone undertake to show us what is the 
 
6o Catcses of the Civil and 
 
 analogy between this sort of anarchy and the material 
 prosperity of Scotland ? 
 
 That Scotland presents a picture of wealth and 
 industry cannot be denied, but are there no other 
 countries similar in character ? 
 
 What shall we say of the inhabitants of the Ar- 
 dennes ? the peasants of the Campine, and the agri- 
 culturists of the sandy plains of Flanders ? 
 
 The Liege professor, who has shown in his writings 
 an appreciation of the rural economy of his own 
 country, is perfectly justified in bearing testimony to 
 the prosperity of the Scotch, but there is no need to 
 give them more credit than they deserve. The fact 
 that the Duke of Sutherland every year reclaims a 
 certain number of acres of fertile ground from a 
 barren soil can no more be attributed to the excel- 
 lence of Protestantism than the agriculturist wonders 
 achieved by means of Belgian State funds in the fields 
 of Beverloo ^ can be attributed to the Catholic Church. 
 
 If the present prosperity of Scotland is to be re- 
 garded as the fruit of the Reformation, it has been 
 very tardy in its growth. In this case also the present 
 prosperity of Belgium should be regarded as the fruit 
 
 * Beverloo is a permanent military camp established in the 
 middle of the sandy plains of Limbourg, in Belgium. 
 
Material Prosperity of Nations. 6 1 
 
 of Catholicism, but such a Hne of argument is absurd 
 and proves nothing. 
 
 The following passage from the pen of M. de La- 
 vergne ^ is so excellent that we quote it in extenso : — 
 
 " Scotland is one of the principal examples extant of what 
 may be accomplished by the power of man over nature. 
 
 Switzerland does not present such great obstacles to human 
 industry, and Holland can scarcely rival it. The marvel of this 
 development of prosperity upon a barren soil consists princi- 
 pally in the fact that it is quite recent. 
 
 Scotland has not the same antecedents as England. Only a 
 century ago it was one of the poorest and the least civilized of 
 European nations, and the last traces of its former poverty still 
 linger in some parts, though on the whole it may justly be as- 
 serted that there is no tract of land under the sun so well 
 organized. 
 
 Its products have increased tenfold since the beginning of this 
 century. 
 
 The Scotch farmers, who were a hundred years ago almost 
 without exception very poor and miserable, have not as yet 
 realized such vast capital as their English brethren. 
 
 The population of the counties of Lanark and Renfrew, the 
 chief seats of manufacturing and commercial activity, has in- 
 creased in a hundred years from 100,000 to 600,000 persons, and 
 that of the single town of Glasgow from 20,000 to nearly 400,000. 
 
 The seed of all these riches did not exist in the year 1750, but 
 English gold, aided by the laborious and frugal genius of the 
 Scotch people, has produced them. 
 
 As long as Scotland remained separate from England and 
 
 See ^^ Essai siir PEconofJiie rurale de I'Angleterre, de VEcosse 
 et de VlrlandeT M. de Lavergne, Paris. 
 
62 Causes of the Civil and 
 
 dependent only on its own strength, it vegetated, but as soon as 
 it opened its arms to the funded wealth of its powerful neigh- 
 bour, it developed itself to an extraordinary degree. 
 
 The most beautiful present that. England made to Scotland 
 was this union of the two countries, inasmuch as it comprised 
 her constitution and political spirit. 
 
 Up to the year 1750 Scotland was the stronghold of the ancient 
 feudal system ; it only began to open its eyes after the battle of 
 Culloden ; and so recently as the end of last century, Ayrshire, 
 which is adjacent to Galloway, was in a most deplorable condi- 
 tion of poverty and degradation," &c. 
 
 We are assured that Scotland owes its prosperity to 
 its Protestantism, but as a matter of fact, until the 
 battle of Culloden, in 1746, the Highland chiefs 
 thought of nothing but the increase in number of 
 their soldiers or retainers, attaching great importance 
 to the strength of the armed forces they could muster 
 under their banner. 
 
 Long after the social and agricultural condition of 
 affairs of the Middle Ages had elsewhere ceased to 
 exist, it still maintained itself in these retreats. 
 
 After the expulsion of the Stuarts the face of every- 
 thing changed, and the cause and reason of this 
 change forms an interesting and instructive study. 
 The population, in part Catholic (for a certain portion 
 of the Highlanders have remained to this day faithful 
 to the Catholic Church), was too dense for the produc- 
 
Mateidal Prosperity of Nations. 63 
 
 tive qualities of the soil. The chiefs of the various 
 clans arrived by degrees at the conviction that they 
 could get nothing from their mountains but by extermi- 
 nating the inhabitants that resided on them, and from 
 this time forth they began, first by covert and in- 
 direct means, and afterwards openly by the use of 
 force, to decimate the populations their forefathers 
 had multiplied for purposes of warfare. 
 
 The English government encouraged the under- 
 taking with much diplomatic skill and foresight. 
 Until the commencement of this century the landed 
 proprietors executed these measures with some sort 
 of appreciation for the feelings of their poor depen- 
 dents, but since then the chief of the clan has 
 generally forced his people to evacuate their dw^ell- 
 
 ings. 
 
 A large proportion of these unfortunate creatures 
 emigrated to America, others sought a home in the 
 Lowland districts, whilst large sheep-farms were esta- 
 blished upon the smoking ruins of their former dwell- 
 
 ings. 
 
 In the year 1808 Lord Selkirk publicly set forth 
 the theory of depopulation, which was styled clearing 
 an estate. 
 
 This was the era when Sir Walter Scott lived 
 
64 Causes of the Civil atid 
 
 and sang the liberties and freedom of the Scottish 
 people ! 
 
 On one well-known estate in Sutherland the High- 
 landers were summarily ordered to quit their moun- 
 tains and come and settle as sailors, fishermen, or 
 ordinary agricultural labourers on that portion of the 
 estate which bordered on the sea. 
 
 Those who refused compliance were forced to emi- 
 grate, and in this way between the years 18 10 and 
 1820, 3,000 families were turned adrift, and deprived 
 of lands on which their ancestors had lived. 
 
 If any resistance was offered the houses were burnt 
 down or otherwise destroyed. These proceedings 
 enabled 118,000 Cheviots and 13,000 head of cattle 
 to graze on the hills of Sutherland, 415,000 pounds of 
 wool were sold to the weavers of York, 30,000 sheep 
 were delivered to the Northumberland farmers for 
 slaughter, and the agent was made a Member of 
 Parliament. 
 
 Our opponents are fond of asserting that the Latin 
 cantons of Neufchatel, of Vaud, and of Geneva, be- 
 cause they are Protestant, excel in education, litera- 
 ture, art, industry, commerce, riches, and cleanliness, 
 to an extraordinary degree, all those cantons that con- 
 tain a majority of Catholic inhabitants. 
 
Material Prosperity of Nations. 65 
 
 Assertions of this character are more rash than 
 correct, and only impose on those who are un- 
 acquainted with the history of Switzerland. 
 
 The basin of the Lake of Leman has received from 
 nature the gift of an exceptionally fertile soil, and 
 exceptionally economical resources. 
 
 It is no marvel, therefore, that the populations who 
 inhabit these favoured districts should be more pros- 
 perous than those of the mountainous villages in Uri, 
 or in the wild valleys of Saas, Anniviers, and Dermatt 
 in the Haut-Valais. 
 
 If a comparison be made between the Protestant 
 country districts of Vaud, not in the basin of the Lake 
 of Leman, and the Catholic districts of the canton of 
 Fribourg, which have the same climate and are at the 
 same altitude, it will be seen that the Catholics of 
 Fribourg are in no way inferior to the Protestant 
 inhabitants of Vaud, either as regards intellectual 
 attainments, order, or well-being. 
 
 The prosperity of Geneva is natural, and there is no 
 necessity to pay homage to the co-religionists of 
 M. Carteret, for the sake of explaining it. The town 
 occupies an exceptionally good position, close to 
 France, on the borders of a large lake, covered with 
 steamboats, and surrounded by vineyards and rich 
 
 F 
 
66 Catises of the Civil and 
 
 pasture land, and has been from time immemorial a 
 place of great resort for strangers from all parts of 
 the world. 
 
 The prosperity of Neufchatel is due to its population 
 of clock-makers, as much Catholic as Protestant, but 
 whose lot in any case is not very enviable. It is as 
 unreasonable to say that the cantons of Geneva and 
 Neufchatel are more prosperous than those of the 
 Haut-Valais and the forest cantons, because they are 
 Protestant, as it would be to attribute the impossibility 
 of planting corn-fields on the slopes of Mount Cervin, 
 or vines in the fields of Andermatt and Uri, to the 
 Catholicism of the inhabitants. 
 
 M. Martin (^^Avenir dii Protestantisme ct du Catho- 
 licisine^' p. 197) states with reference to the canton of 
 Valais as an " economical " fact, that at a general 
 meeting of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, at St. 
 Maurice, the conference of the Valais declared they 
 did not know how to employ the funds of the Society, 
 since they had no poor persons in their district. 
 
 On the strength of Hepworth Dixon's works on 
 Switzerland, the assertion has been made that in the 
 canton of Appenzel (since 1597 divided into the two 
 districts of Inner-Rhoden in the mountains, inhabited 
 by 1 1,900 Catholics, and Ausser-Rhoden in the valley. 
 
Material Prosperity of Nations. 67 
 
 inhabited by 46,726 Protestants) the Protestants are 
 active, industrious, sociable, and rich ; the Catholics 
 lazy, ignorant, poor, creatures of habit, and dispersed 
 in scattered huts. He writes as follows : — 
 
 " Each shepherd lives apart from his fellows, whom he only 
 meets at mass, at wrestling matches, and public-houses. 
 
 The lads can read and write, for they are Switzers subject to 
 the cantonal law, but books and journals are unknown amongst 
 them, saving here and there some histories of the lives of the 
 saints and popular papers containing scraps of old wives' lore, in 
 place of general and exciting news." 
 
 The "Saturday Review" (No. 853) does not con- 
 sider Hepworth Dixon a trustworthy authority, so that 
 any line of arguments built upon his statements would 
 probably be considered unsatisfactory in the eyes of a 
 large class of persons. 
 
 We quote this fact in order that our readers may 
 rest assured that no prejudice on our part makes us 
 discredit the evidence given in relation to Switzerland. 
 It stands to reason that a widely-scattered population 
 of herdsmen living in mountainous districts, that are 
 almost inaccessible, must be more wild and poverty- 
 stricken than a population dwelling in a valley full of 
 towns and villages. The religious question has nothing 
 in common with the economical condition of the can- 
 ton of Appenzel. 
 
6S Civil and Material Prosperity of Nations, 
 
 Hepworth Dixon's picture, stripped of its wrongly- 
 drawn accompaniments, has doubtless many attrac- 
 tions. These mountaineers, renowned throughout the 
 whole of Switzerland for their jovial temperament^ 
 their vigour of body and of mind, and their ancient 
 popular games {Schwingfeste), must produce a charm- 
 ing effect, when they come down from their dwellings 
 in their picturesque national costumes, either to go to 
 mass or to take some amusement amongst the civilized 
 inhabitants of the valley. 
 
 But as long as they are content with reading the 
 lives of the saints and local popular papers, instead of 
 satiating themselves with such literature as is read by 
 the English labouring classes, it is evident they can 
 never expect to have their praises sung either by 
 Hepworth Dixon or any of the school of modern 
 liberals. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 •COMPARISON BETWEEN CATHOLIC AND PROTESTANT 
 COUNTRIES FROM AN ECONOMICAL POINT OF 
 VIEW. 
 
 The true signification of the expression " a man of the day " — 
 First temporal rule of human societies — How a society of un- 
 civilized people may be relatively perfect — Incorrectness of 
 statement that Protestant countries are more active and in- 
 dustrious than Catholic countries — Political economy of the 
 Catholics in Prussia — In the United States of America — In 
 Canada — French Protestantism — Economical consequences 
 of the revocation of the Edict of Nantes — The rate of exchange 
 in Catholic countries — Catholics and the book trade — Political 
 life in Germany. 
 
 EFORE further entangling ourselves in 
 the labyrinth of the deductive school, 
 v/e will once more recall the principles 
 which predominate in this discussion. 
 We may begin by asserting that we have a profound 
 admiration for all the scientific discoveries of our day ; 
 
70 Catholic and Protestant Countries 
 
 and that we appreciate the practical importance of 
 industry and of commerce. 
 
 We are " men of the day," but we are nevertheless 
 disposed to think that it would be difficult to prove 
 that Aristotle was a philosopher of lower merit than 
 ]\I. Tiberghien, that Alexander of Macedonia was 
 inferior in political knowledge and experience to 
 Prince Bismarck, that Demosthenes was less clever 
 and enlightened than Mr. Gladstone, that Papinien 
 was a pedant compared to Professor Bluntschli, and 
 that M. de Savornin merits a hundredfold higher posi- 
 tion in the social scale than St. Jerome. 
 
 Protestant- sects, and even the Catholic Church 
 itself, have but indirect relations with the great events 
 that these names recall to our memory. 
 
 Jesus Christ has said " My kingdom is not of this 
 world." 
 
 *' Seek first the kingdom of God and His justice,, 
 and all the rest shall be added unto you." 
 
 This "rest" Catholics possess, as we have said before, 
 in various degrees, and at least to quite as great an 
 extent as Protestants. 
 
 At a time when professors of political economy 
 and other great ones of the world look upon them- 
 
 I 
 
From an Economical Point of View. 71 
 
 selves as the high priests of the future, because they 
 expose the laws which control the production and 
 the circulation of passing riches and study the condi- 
 tions of material prosperity, it is necessary to repeat 
 incessantly and proclaim aloud upon the house-tops, 
 that the end of man upon earth does not entirely con- 
 sist in the exaltation of his well-being. 
 
 We find in the catechism authorized for use in the 
 diocese of Malines, a few simple questions and an- 
 swers which surpass in beauty the "Timee" of Plato 
 and the twelfth book of Aristotle's " Metaphysics : " — 
 
 " What is man ? Man is a creature of God, gifted zuith reason^ 
 possessing an immortal soul and a mortal body. Which is the 
 noblest part of man ? The soul. For luhat end did God create 
 man ? Man was created by God to serve Him iii this life and to 
 possess Hi?n eternally in the next. Are we then 7iot created to 
 enjoy ourselves in this life and to amass riches ? No^ we are 
 created to serve God." 
 
 To serve God is to reign. Servire Deo, regnare 
 est. 
 
 He who serves God truly, reigns over creation, 
 even -though he may be the poorest and most illite- 
 rate of men. The Christian faith was not preached 
 and the Universal Church was not founded either by 
 rich capitalists, literary and scientific writers, pro- 
 
72 Catholic and Pi^otestant Countries 
 
 fessors of rural economy, consummate politicians, 
 clever diplomatists, great generals, or shrewd and 
 eloquent lawyers. 
 
 Jesus Christ, filius fabri, lived the life of an artisan, 
 and died crucified between two malefactors ; the 
 Apostles were simple labourers and fishermen, and 
 the whole work of Christianity was the greatest 
 scandal which " the learned," " the rich," " the in- 
 telligent," "the civilized," of the first four centuries 
 were called upon to witness. 
 
 It is the same at the present day : the existence, the 
 development, the immutability of the Catholic Church 
 together form a scandal in the eyes of unbelievers, and 
 of those who are entirely given up to the pleasures of 
 the world. 
 
 Until now the man of the " tertiary period," who, it 
 was supposed, would be the same triumph in the 
 natural theology of rationalism as the invention of 
 the Krupp cannon has been in military art, has not 
 yet been discovered, but cities built on piles do still 
 exist which to the horror of modern liberals are still 
 in the hands of the clergy. 
 
 M. X. Marmier not long ago gave a dissertation 
 before the various assembled Academies of France, 
 on the history of the dwellings of different nations, 
 
From an Economical Point of View. 73 
 
 from which we select an interesting passage relating 
 to the cities that are built upon piles : — 
 
 " In one of the most fertile regions of South America, in the 
 Repubhc of Venezuela, a tribe of Indians may be found who 
 have constructed their dwellings in the middle of the lake of 
 Maracaibo, not in order to escape from tigers or serpents, or the 
 invasion of hostile tribes, but to withdraw themselves from a 
 legion of mosquitoes, far larger and more venomous than those 
 that frequent our European climate. These insects, as is well- 
 known in all countries, prefer the neighbourhood of water, but 
 scarcely ever leave the damp soil on the bank where they were 
 hatched, and the Indians know that a certain distance from the 
 shore they are safe from their attacks. They are surrounded 
 with everything necessary to build huts, the palo di hierro^ for 
 their piles, a lighter sort of wood for their floors and partitions, 
 creeping plants out of which they can make ropes for binding 
 together the different parts of the building, and palm leaves as a 
 covering for the roof 
 
 There is no need to build massive walls (rain being the only 
 kind of inclement weather they have to dread), for snow, frost, 
 and cold winds are unknown. Thanks to the great riches of the 
 country, there is no trouble as to the means of existence. 
 
 The lake is full of fish, and at certain seasons of the year 
 thousands of wild ducks come and settle, of which large numbers 
 are captured by means of snares. 
 
 The nevea^ from which a milky sap is extracted that forms 
 india-rubber, grows plentifully along the banks, and traders come 
 every year to buy this article, as well as the down of the ducks, 
 and the cargoes of smoked and preserved fish which this in- 
 dustrious people collect. These Indians live in their peaceful 
 settlement, and are not ranked amongst civilized nations ; they 
 possess no newspapers and have no railways ; they are ignorant 
 
74 CaiJiolic and Protestant Countries 
 
 of the sweet excitements connected with the rise and fall of the 
 Funds, and of the charm of parliamentary discussions. 
 
 But they are Christians (converted by Spanish missionaries), 
 and in the midst of their simple village rises a church built on 
 piles. 
 
 The cross that crowns the summit of the steeple is reflected 
 in the shining mirror of water, and the bell peals forth the 
 angelus in this solitude of the New World; at the hours of ser- 
 vice, the family canoes are grouped around its entrance, whilst 
 the faithful Indians devoutly kneel within its precincts. 
 
 When the Spaniards first arrived in this quarter the sight of 
 the aquatic dwellings of Maracaibo reminded them of Venice, 
 and they christened the country they had discovered by the 
 name of Venezuela. 
 
 The opulent and proud Venice of the old world has now lost 
 her riches; the city of the Doges has lost her golden ring, the 
 Queen of the Adriatic has forfeited her crown, and she who was 
 at one time so full of glory has been subjected to numberless 
 disasters; but this little Indian tribe of Venezuela has never 
 known such splendid prosperity, and will never experience such 
 a terrible downfall. 
 
 Contented with its humble position in the world, it neither 
 dreams of growing rich by rash speculation, nor increasing its 
 boundaries by adventurous conquest. 
 
 The lake on which it is situated is its vast ocean, its frail bark 
 is its ' Biicentoro^ its wooden chapel is its basilica of St. Mark, 
 and its prosperity consists in the modest and simple habits of its 
 daily life." 
 
 It is not probable that either we or our readers would 
 
 select this city on piles as a summer residence; but 
 
 we should never presume to assert that these contented 
 
 and happy people live, before God, in a state of civili- 
 
From an Economical Point of View, 75 
 
 zation Inferior to that enjoyed by the officials of the 
 existing government at Geneva, or the police agents 
 of Berlin. 
 
 The inference we wish to draw from this kind of 
 simile is that the deductive theories of the school of 
 modern continental liberals are in their origin and 
 essence fallacious. The material and exterior develop- 
 ment of a society depends upon nature, and a variety 
 of accessory circumstances which differ according to 
 times and places. 
 
 The only one thing that is necessary, everywhere, 
 and at all times, is the service of God ; and even if a 
 people, in the accomplishment of this service, should 
 fail in politics, economy, industry, or literature, they 
 would nevertheless remain superior to all the things of 
 this world. Servire Deo, regnare est. 
 
 We do not deny the possibility of any Catholic 
 society (even if religiously perfect) under the influence 
 of certain exterior circumstances showing symptoms 
 of temporary decline ; but we entirely repudiate the 
 assertion that "wherever the two forms of worship co- 
 exist in a country, the Protestants are more active, 
 more industrious, more economical, and consequently 
 richer than the Catholics." 
 
 Considering that the end of life is not only the 
 
76 Catholic and Protestant Countries 
 
 amassing of riches, we might content ourselves with 
 quoting the well-known words of Melancthon to his 
 mother, " Though it may be better to live as a Pro- 
 testant, it is preferable to die a Catholic ;" but our 
 assertion is that a reasonably economical development 
 does not smother the spiritual means that man must 
 employ in order to arrive at his supernatural end. 
 
 In Prussia (the stronghold of Lutheranism) the 
 Catholic provinces of the Rhine, Westphalia, and 
 Silesia are the richest and most prosperous portions 
 of the whole kingdom, whilst the Protestant districts 
 of Pomerania and Brandenbourg are the poorest and 
 most destitute, besides producing the largest number 
 of emigrants. 
 
 In the actual district of Prussia proper, the Catholic 
 portion of Ermeland is vastly superior in wealth and 
 civilization to the remainder, which is Protestant. 
 
 Posen is certainly less prosperous than the other 
 Catholic provinces, though possessing a robust and 
 sturdy class of peasants ; but the reason for this may 
 be traced to the errors of the governments of the old 
 Polish monarchy, and to the fact that it suffers at 
 present from an administrative tyranny that stifles 
 every aspiration. 
 
 The government at Berlin has sworn to Germanize 
 
From an Economical Point of View, jj 
 
 the whole duchy of Posen; and to accomplish this end 
 all the teaching in the elementary schools is given in 
 the German language, even to children who have 
 learnt from their parents nothing but Polish. 
 
 The intellectual growth of the young is stunted 
 with determinate and fixed purpose, and the econo- 
 mical development of the whole people is dwarfed 
 by the action of the government in the elementary 
 schools. 
 
 Frederic II., subsequently to the annexation of the 
 Catholic district of Westphalia to the electorate of 
 Brandenbourg, gave permission to the inhabitants of 
 the former to settle in the territory of the latter, with 
 the exception of the town of Berlin, which was abso- 
 lutely prohibited to them. 
 
 This is the secret of the large number of Catholic 
 families to be found in the present day throughout the 
 Margravate (Westphalians in their origin). 
 
 Most of these families live in easy, if not affluent, 
 circumstances, in the midst of a relatively poor dis- 
 trict. Since the proclamation of religious liberty in 
 the year 1850, they have served as the nursery of all 
 the Catholic missions in that part of the country. 
 
 Many poor localities may be found in Silesia and 
 Posen, but they are almost invariably the spots where 
 
"j^ Catholic and Protestant Cotmt^'ies 
 
 large monasteries had existed previous to their secu- 
 larization in 1 8 10 and 1831. 
 
 The people that dwelt around these old institutions, 
 and who partook in their prosperity and splendour, 
 found themselves suddenly ruined the moment the 
 source of long-established prosperity was dried up, the 
 ancient causes of their industry swept away, and their 
 benefactors suppressed. 
 
 Such desolation (the result of a Protestant spirit 
 of animosity) naturally takes a long period for re- 
 covery. 
 
 The fact is, that in mixed countries, where the 
 majority does not exercise any violent oppression, the 
 minority by the concentration of its strength and its 
 energy is generally distinguished by an industrious 
 activity. 
 
 Such is the cause of the industry and commerce of 
 the Greeks in the Turkish Empire, of the Protestants 
 in Bavaria, Alsace, and the south of France, of the 
 Catholics in Holland, of the Dalmatians in the old re- 
 public of Venice, of the Chinese in the English pos- 
 sessions in Asia, and of the Jews in every quarter of 
 the globe. 
 
 Look at the Catholics throughout the New World ; 
 who can deny the vast progress they have made } 
 
From an Economical Point of View. 79 
 
 M. de Tocqueville, a well-known writer, makes the 
 following remarkable statements in a work on demo- 
 cracy : ^ — 
 
 " America is the most democratic country in the world, and is 
 at the same time that in which the Catholic reUgion makes the 
 greatest progress. 
 
 Future generations will tend more and more to the formation 
 of two opposite parties, the one altogether setting aside the 
 teaching of Christianity, the other retiring into the fold of the 
 Cathohc Church." 
 
 And again : — 
 
 "The American Protestant preachers dwell much upon earthly 
 considerations in their discourses, and appear to me to have 
 great difficulty in speaking of anything else. 
 
 In order to please their congregations and accommodate their 
 hearers, they attempt to prove how greatly religious opinions 
 favour civil liberty and public order. It is difficult to realize 
 from their discourses whether the principal object of religion is 
 to attain eternal happiness in the next world, or to enjoy comfort 
 and well-being in the present." {Idem, p. 32.) 
 
 The first Catholic bishop appointed in the United 
 States was Monsignor Carroll, in the year 1790. At 
 the present time (1876) there are seven archbishops 
 and thirty-six bishops, and quite recently an American 
 prelate has for the first time been admitted into the 
 sacred College of Cardinals. 
 
 ^ See " Democracy in America." By M. de Tocqueville. Vol. 
 ii. page 30, 3rd edition. Paquerre, Paris, 1850. 
 
 y 
 
8o Catholic and Protestant Countries 
 
 (Monsignor MacCloskey, Archbishop of New York, 
 was raised to this dignity in the early part of the year 
 1875, by his Holiness Pope Pius IX.) 
 
 Catholic works of every kind are on the Increase, 
 and the faithful of Louisiana, Missouri, the Western 
 States, California, and Oregon, are well able to com- 
 pete with the ancient and wealthy Catholic commu- 
 nities of New England. 
 
 These innumerable works are endowed with a 
 capital, the palpable manifestation of an unexampled 
 prosperity. 
 
 We do not know much respecting the wealth of the 
 Canadian Catholics, but we have never heard of their 
 poverty. 
 
 In the Island of Newfoundland, and in Lower 
 Canada, where the descendants of the original French 
 colonists form two-thirds of the population, the 
 greater portion of the landed property of the country 
 is in the hands of the Catholics, who In most cases 
 live In easy and affluent circumstances. In Upper 
 Canada the Catholics, few In number, are principally 
 immigrants from Ireland and Germany, and are In the 
 same condition as all that class of colonists through- 
 out the British possessions. 
 
 From the time of the annexation of the French 
 
From ail Economical Point of View, 8i 
 
 colonies of North America to the English Crown, the 
 Catholics have been, if not actually oppressed, cer- 
 tainly deprived of the favours of the mother country, 
 and it is a remarkable fact, and one worthy of the 
 attention of our opponents, that they are the only 
 people who since the end of the last century have re- 
 mained faithful to the English Crown, a fidelity which 
 has been rewarded by a very tardy display of grati- 
 tude on the part of England. 
 
 During the last forty years, however, the Canadian 
 Catholics have been free to make their own efforts, 
 and in this short space of time have manifested a 
 prodigious amount of activity. 
 
 The enterprising and practical spirit of the English 
 people, which existed long before the birth of Protes- 
 tantism, has shown itself in Canada, as elsewhere, and 
 we freely admit that in industrial and commercial 
 speculations ** perfidious Albion " truly occupies the 
 first place in the world ; but we repeat what we have 
 more than once stated, that prosperity and wealth are 
 not the standard of the moral and political value 
 either of the individual, the family, the society, or the 
 nation. 
 
 On the faith of the Canadian people themselves, 
 English Protestants do not occupy the first places 
 
 G 
 
82 Catholic and Protesta^it Coimtries 
 
 either at Quebec, Montreal, or even at St. John's^ 
 Newfoundland. 
 
 Quebec in Canada and Nismes in the south of 
 France are places widely apart from each other, but 
 both contain a population of French people, the former 
 afflicted with Catholicism, the latter transformed by 
 the Reformation : it is to this latter place, the birth- 
 place of the great Guizot, that we wish to make some 
 allusion. 
 
 M. Audiganne, in a remarkable work upon the 
 " Working Population of France," notices the superio- 
 rity of the Protestant party, in the matter of industry, 
 which work is the less open to suspicion since he does 
 not attribute this superiority to Protestantism. 
 
 The majority of the working classes at Nismes, he 
 declares, are Catholic, especially amongst the silk- 
 weavers, whilst the heads of the financial and com- 
 mercial establishments and all the capitalists belong, 
 as a rule, to the reformed religion. 
 
 When one family is divided into two branches, the 
 one having remained faithful to the Church of its 
 ancestors, the other having embraced the new doc- 
 trines, there is in almost every case a progressive 
 poverty on the one side, and an increase of wealth on 
 the other. 
 
From an Economical Point of View, Z'}y 
 
 At Mazamet, the Elbceuf of the south of France, 
 according to the same writer, the heads of all the large 
 firms are Protestants, whilst the great majority of the 
 operatives are Catholics. He also asserts that there 
 is less instruction amongst the latter than amongst 
 the labouring families of the Protestants. 
 
 Economical facts like these are easy to account for, 
 and M. Audiganne is careful to say that he does not 
 attribute to religious causes a state of things which 
 at first sight appears so favourable to the Protestant 
 side. 
 
 Not so M. de Laveleye, who coolly divides this 
 testimony, to suit his theories ; and whilst ignoring 
 all that is unfavourable, he takes for his argument 
 only that portion which supports his own opinion. 
 
 Even granting that this method of procedure in dis- 
 cussion is admissible in the domain of modern logic, 
 what conclusion can be drawn .'' 
 
 At the most, a fact interesting to note down, that 
 at Nismes and Mazamet nearly all the funded wealth 
 is in the hands of the Protestants. 
 
 Otherwise, the Messrs. Rothschild, as the richest 
 people in Europe, must be considered as possessed of 
 a civilization superior to that of the Protestants in the 
 Old or New World ; the Jewish bankers of Frankfort 
 
84 Catholic and Protestant Countries 
 
 and Berlin, to the followers of Luther in Germany ; and 
 the Jews, as a body, vastly superior to the whole race 
 of Protestants. 
 
 In the face of the present scandalous abuse and 
 destruction of religious liberty in Switzerland and 
 Germany, it was scarcely necessary to allude to past 
 abuses such as the revocation of the Edict of Nantes,. 
 as M. de Laveleye does in the following terms : — 
 
 " Before the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, the reformers 
 excelled in every branch of industry, and the Catholics, who 
 could not cope with them, prohibited them in the year 1662 by 
 several successive edicts from the exercise of various branches 
 of trade in which they had attained great perfection. 
 
 After their expulsion from France, the Protestants carried with 
 them into England, Prussia, and Holland their spirit of enter- 
 prise, industry, and economy, and enriched the districts in which 
 they settled. 
 
 It is to people of the Latin race, who had embraced the re- 
 formed religion, that the Teutons owe in part their progress. 
 
 The refugees of the revocation of the Edict of Nantes intro- 
 duced into England many kinds of industry, amongst others the 
 silk trade, and the civilization of the Scotch may be regarded as 
 the work of the disciples of Calvin." 
 
 Calvinist civilization in Scotland ! 
 
 In the whole history of Christianity there is not a 
 sect to be found whose action has been more rough, 
 more intolerant, and more brutal. 
 
 We have already lifted a corner of the veil that some 
 
From a7i Economical Point of View. 85 
 
 persons wish to throw over the condition of Scotland 
 in bygone days, and at another time we shall have 
 occasion to lift it still higher. 
 
 For the present we will consider the question of the 
 revocation of the Edict of Nantes. 
 
 This impolitic act of Louis XIV., according to the 
 testimony of Macaulay and Ranke, was neither 
 approved of by the Cabinet of Madrid nor by Pope 
 Innocent XL, as a careful study of their writings can 
 testify. 
 
 When Englishmen inveigh against Louis XIV.'s 
 unfortunate revocation of that act, they seem to 
 forget that at that very time the laws of England 
 were inflicting the penalty of death on any Catholic 
 priest who ventured to offer the sacrifice of the Mass 
 within this realm. 
 
 Quite independently of any alleged cruelties on the 
 part of Catholic nations, Scotch and Genevan Cal- 
 vinists, German Lutherans, and the tyrannical disciples 
 of Henry VIIL, Elizabeth, Barlow and Parker, have 
 no right to reproach Louis XIV. for any act of 
 intolerance, when the history of each of these people 
 is stained by so much cruelty and tyranny. 
 
 Louis XIV. used severity towards the French re- 
 formers quite as much, if not more, from political than 
 
86 Catholic and Protesta7it Countries 
 
 from religious reasons, whilst the Protestant party 
 throughout Europe have invariably acted, and in some 
 places still continue to act with severity against 
 Catholics, from mere hatred of Catholicism and de- 
 testation of the fundamental principles of the Church. 
 Germany and Switzerland at the present day afford 
 a striking example of our assertion. 
 
 Is there a single Catholic country in the world that 
 treats its Protestant subjects in the cavalier fashion 
 that Prussia and Switzerland have thought fit to 
 adopt towards the Catholics ? 
 
 The king of France called the theological " thesis "" 
 to his aid, and in overturning the "hypothesis" of the 
 religious liberty of the dissidents, did not boast of the 
 principles of the Reformation as regarded liberty of 
 worship. 
 
 As to the economical side of the question of the 
 expulsion of the Huguenots, many considerations 
 might be entered into, but we will content ourselves 
 with contesting the facts quoted by a reference to an 
 article in the ''Revtie des Questions Historiqiies'' (vol. 
 XV. p. 590, in 1874), upon a work of M. de Segur 
 Dupeyron, formerly French consul at Antwerp, en- 
 titled, " History of the Maritime and Commercial 
 Negotiations of France in the Seventeenth and. 
 
From an Economical Point of View. %"] 
 
 Eighteenth Centuries, considered in their relation 
 to General Politics." 
 
 M. de Segur Dupeyron blames the act of Louis 
 XIV., and attributes the momentary decline of French 
 industry, during the second half of his reign, to the 
 misfortunes of war, and denies that the prosperity of 
 other countries has been the work of French refugees. 
 
 The cloth trade of Friesland dates from the Carlo- 
 vingian period ; and at the beginning of the sixteenth 
 century Amsterdam and Leyden manufactured 24,000 
 pieces of cloth every year. 
 
 The weaving of wool was introduced into England 
 by Flemish artisans two centuries before the preaching 
 of Luther. 
 
 Seventy years before the revocation of the Edict of 
 Nantes a few workmen of Aix-la-Chapelle started a 
 new method for the manufacture of woollen goods in 
 the town of Amsterdam, and five-and-twenty years 
 previous to this silk manufactories had been already 
 organized in Holland. 
 
 The present perfected methods of weaving woollen 
 materials were introduced into Sedan and the south 
 of France by Dutch and Flemish workmen. 
 
 The silk trade was first introduced into France 
 about the year 1521 by artisans from the plains of 
 
88 Catholic and Protestant Countries 
 
 Lombardy. From the year 1629 to 1681 it was 
 organized in London, and 4,000 workmen were em- 
 ployed ; and in the year 171 3 (that is to say, twenty- 
 eight years after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes) 
 the number of operatives remained the same. 
 
 A diplomatic letter of 1686 makes known the fact 
 that the industry of linen, flax, and hemp was brought 
 to perfection in Great Britain by French Catholic 
 artizans. 
 
 In the year 171 3 the Enghsh manufactories were 
 incapable of keeping up competition with the French, 
 and this fact is made evident by the petitions to the 
 English Parliament against the project of a treaty 
 that was being negotiated at Utrecht. 
 
 The case is precisely similar as regards Holland. 
 
 The author of the " History of the Protestant 
 Refugees " tells us that the industry of the refugees 
 was less durable in Holland than its brilliant begin- 
 ning had given hopes of. 
 
 The manufactories of silk, of linen, and of paper, 
 which they had called into existence, began to decline 
 as early as the first half of the eighteenth century, i,e. 
 after the re-establishment of peace. 
 
 The same author adds that the woollen and leather 
 trade, and the refineries of sugar, preserve to this day 
 
Fro7n an Eco7iomical Point of View. 89 
 
 the improvements which date from that period— a 
 theory which M. de Segur Dupeyron denies in show- 
 ing that all the existing improvements of these trades 
 are very much posterior to the year 1685. 
 
 The conclusion of the " History of the Protestant 
 Refugees " is that the manufactories established by 
 the French exiles could not fail to dwindle away by 
 degrees. 
 
 The fabrication of silk only flourished till the close 
 of the war of the Spanish Succession (1713). 
 
 On the restoration of peace the French silks, which 
 were less costly and at the same time combined 
 better work with greater elegance and taste, soon re- 
 gained their old superiority over the Dutch markets. 
 
 M. de Segur Dupeyron concludes in the following 
 words : — 
 
 " In the presence of French competition it was almost impos- 
 sible for the Protestant refugees to establish anything durable 
 either in England or in Holland." 
 
 In Prussia, where enormous advantages were 
 offered to the refugees, the industry of which they en- 
 couraged the development was only able to be sus- 
 tained by a series of exceptional laws and prohibi- 
 tions. We must attribute the origin of this design to 
 a- determination on the part of the elector of Bran- 
 
90 Catholic and Protestant CountiHes 
 
 denbourg to escape in his possessions, by means of 
 the protectionist system, the industrial monopoly of 
 Holland and Great Britain. 
 
 He offered such exorbitant conditions that he was 
 enabled to import into his territory workmen from 
 every other. 
 
 The ancestors of Ancillon, Dubois, Reymond, De 
 I'Estocq, De Forcade, Clairon d'Haussonville, Brassier 
 de St. Simon, Chapuis, Fournier, &c., and, in fact, 
 most of the ancestors of the Protestant party in 
 France, sought for position in the ranks of the army, 
 the clergy, and the civil administration rather than in 
 trade or commerce. 
 
 The silk manufactories suffered in France during 
 the war of the Spanish Succession, but once peace 
 was concluded, neither England nor Holland was 
 able to compete with a revival of French industry. 
 
 The English and Dutch manufactories showed a 
 marvellous development during the same war, but 
 after the proclamation of peace their industry returned 
 to its former condition. 
 
 We consider these indications amply sufficient to 
 reduce to their proper worth assertions respecting the 
 economical consequences of the revocation of the 
 Edict of Nantes. 
 
From ail Economical Point of View, 9 1 
 
 We next pass to the question of the funds. M. de 
 
 Laveleye says — 
 
 " If we compare the quotations on the exchange of the public 
 funds of Protestant and Catholic States, we shall find a great 
 difference. The English 3 per cents are above 92 ; the French 
 3 per cents average 60 ; the Dutch, Prussian, Danish, and Swe- 
 dish funds are at least at par ; in Austria, Italy, Spain, and Por- 
 tugal they are lower by 30 or 50 per cent." 
 
 It is ungenerous of him to include Italy in this 
 catalogue, since that kingdom in its modern aspect 
 is the work of the continental liberals, but we 
 will examine how much truth there is in his asser- 
 tions. 
 
 Before the year 1859 the finances of the States of 
 the Church, the kingdom of Naples, the duchies of 
 Modena, Parma, and Tuscany, and above all of the 
 kingdom of Piedmont and Venetian Lombardy, were 
 in a most prosperous condition. 
 
 Before the general revolution throughout Europe in 
 1848, which it may be as well to remind our readers 
 was the w^ork of the liberal party, Austrian currency 
 was above par. . 
 
 Dutch finance is no more due to Protestantism 
 than Belgian finance is due to Catholicism. 
 
 No one would dispute the unparalleled splendour 
 of English wealth, but it should be borne in mind that 
 
92 Catholic and Protestant Countries 
 
 Tyre also was rich, Spain was wealthy, and Babylon 
 pov/erful, but their riches have passed away. The 
 ancient princes of Mexico possessed riches which the 
 conquering Spaniards would scarcely credit, and if 
 Tiberius had issued a loan, it would have been covered 
 a thousand times over. 
 
 The grandfather of the present M. de Rothschild 
 was a man of humble birth and means, and his great- 
 grandchildren may be reduced to mediocrity, but these 
 circumstances prove nothing, either for or against 
 Judaism. 
 
 If after another war the Lutheran Prussians have to 
 collect ten thousand millions, as the Catholic French 
 found themselves compelled to do in 1871, we shall see 
 whether the call will meet with equal response, and 
 whether the sum will be five times the amount de- 
 manded. 
 
 Another argument that has been advanced to prove 
 the superiority of Protestantism is that in Germany 
 the trade in intellectual works, such as books, reviews, 
 maps, and newspapers, is almost entirely in the hands 
 of Jews and Protestants; but surely if Protestants only 
 occupy the second place in this medley of non-Catholic 
 civilization, it is to Judaism and not Protestantism 
 that our modern liberals should turn their attention. 
 
F7'om an Economical Poi7it of View. 93 
 
 The commerce of works of the mind in Germany is 
 a subject that requires more than mere incidental 
 treatment. The book trade, for example, is centred 
 in Leipzig, with so great a power that the market of 
 Berlin has itself in vain attempted to compete with it. 
 This centre of the book trade is so strongly influenced 
 by Protestant and Jewish ideas, that Catholic publi- 
 cations are practically excluded. 
 
 Since the year 1S48 Catholic publishers have been 
 obliged to resort to extraordinary and special methods 
 in order to obtain a circulation for the works they 
 bring out ; for it must not be forgotten that previous 
 to that year there was no liberty in the countr}- of 
 Luther for productions of the mind. 
 
 The absolute proceedings on the part of the Leipzig 
 book market are one of the secondary causes of the 
 philosophical and literary' decline of the Germany of 
 to-day and of the materialism into which the book- 
 trade is perpetually falling. 
 
 It is not only Catholic works that are excluded from 
 the central depot, any works not favourably disposed 
 towards the national liberal party remain unnoticed. 
 This fact may be exemplified by the case of Herr 
 Wuttke, a staunch Protestant of the old school, and a 
 distinguished professor in the University of Leipzig. 
 
94 Catholic and Protestant Coimtries 
 
 One of his works, entitled ''The Press and the 
 Formation of Public Opinion in Germany/' has been 
 entirely ignored, not only in the enlightened districts 
 of North Germany, but even in Leipzig itself. 
 
 It is satisfactory to note that in spite of this studied 
 contempt on the part of the Leipzig publishers, the 
 book has gone through three editions. 
 
 The special library reviews of German publications, 
 that are so loquacious and often so ridiculously pro- 
 lific, either take no notice of Catholic publications or 
 print them in small type, in an obscure part of the 
 catalogue. Partiality' of this character called forth 
 the creation of new library reviews especially intended 
 for Catholic publications. 
 
 Amongst these may be mentioned the '' Littera- 
 rischer Handweisserl^ established about thirteen years 
 ago in Westphalia by Dr. Hulskamp and the late Dr. 
 H. Rump. 
 
 This monthly review, preceded by biographical and 
 other notices, and written in a style peculiarly suitable 
 and elegant, is a perfect model for persons of literary 
 and scientific tastes. It forms a kind of encyclopaedia, 
 having an index which contains notices of contempo- 
 rary publications in England, America, France, and 
 Germany. There does not exist, so far as we know, 
 
From an Economical Pomt of View. 95 
 
 in contemporary literature, with the exception of the 
 *' Poly-biblion^' and the French '' BibliograpJiie CatJio- 
 liqiie!' a. collection superior to it. 
 
 Since the year 1848 Catholic libraries have spread 
 themselves over Germany, several of which have in 
 that short space of time acquired European celebrity, 
 and in this way the exclusiveness of the Leipzig 
 book market has proved beneficial to Catholic publi- 
 cations. 
 
 There is now no town of any size or importance, 
 either in the purely Catholic or semi-Catholic dis- 
 tricts, that does not possess one or more Catholic 
 publishers. 
 
 The intolerance of Protestant and Jewish merchants 
 has been rivalled by the compilers of the celebrated 
 encyclopaedias. One of the latest and most extraordi- 
 nary instances of this unseemly partiality on the part 
 of men of science, is that recently exhibited by the son- 
 in-law of Schelling, M. G. Waitz, in his encyclopaedia 
 of German historical science. 
 
 The studied and obstinate refusal of justice on the 
 part of the most renowned authors of the dominant 
 school has been recently stigmatized in a brilliant 
 article in the review of Mayence {'' Der Catholik,'' 
 October, 1875). 
 
96 Catholic and Protestant Countries 
 
 Since the appearance of Herr Wuttke's work,i a 
 certain amount of presumption is necessary to sing 
 the praises of the German anti-Catholic press, a press 
 almost exclusively in the hands of the Jews in a 
 country destined to be for ever notorious on account 
 of its reptile fund. - 
 
 The Catholic daily press is in no way inferior to the 
 free-thinking papers, either in literary merit or power. 
 
 In the whole German empire there is no newspaper 
 superior in composition and style to the courageous 
 and energetic organ of the Catholics of Berlin, called 
 the " Germania'^' a paper which has become a power, 
 at the very doors of the chancellor of the empire. 
 Prince Bismarck himself, in the spring of 1874, being 
 attacked by the editor. Abbe Majunke, who was also 
 a deputy of the Reichstag, for having prohibited it in 
 Alsace, admitted its power and ability, whilst he 
 designated certain editors of the official journals as 
 swmeherds {" sauhirten''). 
 
 ' The English and German press have been completely silent 
 on the subject of this interesting work, which has passed through 
 three editions. 
 
 = Reptile fund. This refers to the money paid by the govern- 
 ment to the various papers in order that they should sing their 
 praises, a great part of the money being that which was taken 
 from the King of Hanover. 
 
From an Economical Point of View. 97 
 
 The '^ Kobiischer Volkszeitiuig!' published by Herr 
 Bachem, at Cologne, is one of the best written and 
 most energetic of European newspapers. 
 
 No town of any importance in the Catholic or semi- 
 Catholic districts, since the year 1848 (the time that 
 the liberty of the press has been tolerated in Ger- 
 many), has been without a Catholic periodical of 
 some sort. 
 
 The greater portion of the German press, with the 
 honourable exceptions of the " Neiie PreiissiscJier 
 Zeitung',' the '' Fraiikf?irter Zeitiing!' and one or two 
 others, are the creatures of the government, and 
 largely subsidized by its funds ; but the Catholic 
 papers (about three hundred in number), maintain 
 a noble attitude of self-respect and independence. 
 
 Without subsidies, without any reptile fimd, without 
 the support of the "business world," they increase and 
 prosper, though harassed by perpetual prosecutions 
 and suspensions. 
 
 The '' Germania " has had the honour, in the short 
 space of three years, of having had five of its editorial 
 staff and contributors condemned to imprisonment. 
 The powers of the government, the influence of the 
 police, and the zeal of the courts of justice are directed 
 against the expansion of the Catholic press, which dis- 
 
 H 
 
gS Catholic and Protestant Countries 
 
 plays a marvellous amount of life and vigour. The 
 amendments which the Prussian government lately- 
 proposed to introduce into the penal code would seem 
 to have been suggested for no other purpose than to 
 exterminate it, and to verify once more those cele- 
 brated words of Joseph de Maistre, ^^ Error ^ unless sup- 
 ported by proscription, can never hold its own against 
 triithr 
 
 In the whole of Germany there is no periodical that 
 exercises more influence on general public opinion 
 than the "Historical and Political Review" of Munich 
 (the ** Yellow Book," as it is called), ably conducted 
 by Messrs. Joerg and Binder, and founded by Joseph 
 Gorres, the great Catholic writer, whom Napoleon I. 
 christened " the sixth powers 
 
 Since the death of this celebrated man, and the 
 deaths of Schlegel, Eichendorf, and the Austrian 
 Grilsparger (who were all Catholics), and Heine (a 
 Jew), Germany has produced no great writer. 
 
 The literature of that country is now divided 
 between a certain materialistic originality, and an 
 imitation of the faults of the existing literature of 
 France, a mediocrity which finds favour. 
 
 The language of Schiller, which Prince Bismarck so 
 arrogantly attempted to introduce into German 
 
From an Economical Point of View. 99 
 
 diplomatic transactions with foreign countries, makes 
 no progress. 
 
 The affected use of new terms, incomprehensible to 
 the uninitiated, and of words borrowed from the 
 English and French, would prevent it from ever be- 
 coming generally practicable. 
 
 When the Prussian government recently addressed 
 the Belgian cabinet in this fashion, it took three per- 
 sons a whole evening — two of whom were Germans — 
 to determine the sense of certain phrases, just as if it 
 had been a Persian satire, or an Assyrian inscription 
 that had to be deciphered. 
 
 The German parliament, with the exception of Herr 
 Lasker (a Jew) and Prince Bismarck, contains but few 
 orators on the liberal side of the house, whereas 
 amongst the centre, or Catholic party, we find a whole 
 band of debaters — Windhorst (the pearl of Meppen), 
 Peter and August Reichensperger, the Baron de 
 Schorlemer-Alst (captain of the Westphalian peasants). 
 Canon Moufang, and Dr. Joerg. 
 
 An investigation amongst the lower classes proves 
 that amongst the Catholics alone is there any real 
 political life. 
 
 The entire population breathes and lives in its 
 clergy and its deputies. 
 
lOO Catholic and ProtestoMt Countries 
 
 They alone display the political maturity which 
 gives energy in the defence of right, calmness in pas- 
 sive resistance against injustice, perseverance in digni- 
 fied protests ; and they alone amongst all the various 
 political sections, make a loyal use of the parliamen- 
 tary system from which their adversaries have gathered 
 nothing but instruments of despotism and oppression. 
 By a scandalous abuse of the rights of parliamentary 
 majorities, these latter have brought discredit upon 
 representative institutions, preserved intact in most 
 Catholic districts, but neglected or forgotten from the 
 sixteenth century in the margravate of Brandenbourg. 
 
 The centre-party at Berlin is supported by as large 
 a number of electors as its liberal adversaries, though 
 the latter have a majority in parliament three times as 
 numerous. It has been ascertained as a fact that 99 
 per cent, of the Catholic electors record their votes, 
 whereas the liberals scarcely obtain 50 per cent, in 
 their electoral colleges. 
 
 The German liberals recently stigmatized the Catho- 
 lics as an "electoral herd of cattle" i^'stimmvicJi'), but 
 the term is rather beside the mark in the mouths of 
 men who were publicly informed by their chief, Prince 
 Bismarck, that they were elected in his name to do his 
 bidding. 
 
From an Econornical Point of View. loi 
 
 The truth of the statement is evident, and it is 
 universally admitted that the chancellor of the German 
 empire contains within his person alone (the Catholic 
 party, of course, excepted) the whole political life of 
 Germany. We should have considered the term 
 "electoral herd of cattle'" was more appropriate as the 
 designation of the national liberal party. 
 
 It is unnecessary on this point to say more than to 
 refer our readers to the avowals made by Bismarck 
 and his faithful colleague, Dr. Falck, on presenting the 
 project of the Falck laws. They both openly admitted 
 their inability to oppose and contend with the Catho- 
 lics as long as the Church was allowed freedom, and 
 they therefore counselled the use of force. 
 
 At the present moment — thanks to the temporary 
 union of the governing authorities and the national 
 liberal party (who are nominally Protestant) — the 
 entire body of Catholics are hunted like wild beasts, 
 whilst favours and compliments of every kind are 
 showered upon the lukewarm followers of Luther. 
 
 The Catholic Church, however, has not been van- 
 quished, nor have her faithful members been over- 
 come — a fact that the liberals themselves unwillingly 
 admit, after only a few years of experience. They 
 have begun to discover, when too late, that Catholics 
 
I02 Catholic and Protestant Countries 
 
 are neither what they have stated them to be, nor 
 what they would wish them to be. 
 
 M. Thiers is credited with a saying which contains a 
 great deal of truth, " Ceux qui mmigeiit du pretre 
 catholiqiie en meiire7itr 
 
 We are assured, again, that the Reformation has 
 communicated to the countries that adopted it a 
 strength that history can scarcely account for. 
 
 Sweden, England, Prussia, the Netherlands, and the 
 United States are contrasted with Spain, France, and 
 Austria. 
 
 Prussia, in the eyes of M. de Laveleye, is considered 
 worthy of the highest praise, from the fact that it has 
 defeated two empires, each of them much larger 
 than itself — the first in seven weeks, the second in 
 seven months. 
 
 An argument of this kind is really astonishing in the 
 mouth of an economist. 
 
 At the beginning of the present century Prussia was 
 beaten in a single day at the battle of Jena, but no 
 one would dream of attributing that to Luther or to 
 Protestantism. 
 
 This whole series of arguments is illusory. If Spain, 
 France, and Austria have, at certain different epochs, 
 occupied the first place in what is called the concert 
 
From an Economical Point of View. 103 
 
 of nations, it is clear to demonstration that the 
 Catholic religion does not form an obstacle to the 
 temporal greatness of a nation. 
 
 If, on the other hand, Holland and Sweden, in by- 
 gone days, occupied a preponderating position in the 
 political world, it is evident that Protestantism is not 
 a guarantee against decline. 
 
 M. de Laveleye proceeds to prophesy that in two 
 centuries Asia will be in the hands of the schismatic 
 Sclaves, in which case the Greek Church must be 
 superior to Protestantism. 
 
 Two centuries ago he admits that the supremacy of 
 Europe belonged incontestably to Catholic States, but, 
 at the present moment, with France, Austria, Spain, 
 Italy, and South America on one side, and Russia, the 
 German empire, England, and the United States of 
 North America on the other, evidently the preponde- 
 rance has passed to heretics and schismatics. 
 
 Italy, formerly but a geographical expression, has 
 only existed as a kingdom since 1859. Up to the year 
 1865 Austria was not considered inferior to Prussia, 
 and France has only been disregarded since the 
 Franco-German war of 1870. The German empire is 
 but of yesterday, and does not appear to possess the 
 fundamental and essential conditions of durability ; 
 
I04 Catholic and Protestant Countries 
 
 Russia/ smarting from defeat ever since the Crimean 
 war, has remained hitherto a passive spectator of 
 European events ; and has at length found her- 
 self, without any effort on her part, the umpire of 
 Europe. 
 
 In a perfectly balanced scale, two grains of powder 
 and shot, whether they be fabricated by Protestants, 
 Catholics, or Greeks, must always be more effective 
 than one grain. 
 
 In other words, Russia is at this moment the arbiter 
 of the European equilibrium ; Austria may possibly 
 occupy this position to-morrow, and Italy or Spain the 
 day after. 
 
 Attempts to depreciate the Catholic Church by 
 means of an economical formula are not by any means 
 new. Napoleon Roussel, a French Protestant clergy- 
 man, twenty years ago wrote a work, entitled " Ca- 
 tholic and Protestant Nations, considered under the 
 three-fold aspect of Well-Being, Enlightenment, and 
 Morality." 
 
 The work itself was soon forgotten ; but a critique 
 on it, written by a clever sceptic, M. John Lemoine, a 
 
 * Since the above was written Russia has defeated Turkey^ 
 and, in defiance of all her previous promises, seeks to increase 
 her territory and to dictate to Europe. 
 
From an Economical Pomt of View. 105 
 
 member of the French Academy, has lost none of its 
 freshness. 
 
 We reproduce it almost in extenso, from an excellent 
 pamphlet by Monsignor de Segur, entitled ''Remarks 
 on the Protestantism of the Present Day :" — 
 
 "We opened this book anxious to say all the good we could of 
 it, but with all the good-will in the world it is impossible to think 
 well of it, or even of the feeling that inspired it. It sets forth the 
 most senseless and despairing materialism, and if a minister of 
 the gospel has no better moral to present to the world, nothing 
 remains for mankind at large than to feed well and be pros- 
 perous; the richest man will always be the most virtuous. 
 
 In the comparison of Catholic and Protestant nations under 
 the three-fold aspects of well-being, enlightenment, and morality, 
 morality, which ought to occupy the first place, is mentioned last, 
 enlightenment comes second, but well-being and prosperity are 
 given the first rank and brought prominently forward. 
 
 In the course of two volumes M. Roussel asserts that Pro- 
 testants are infinitely happier in this world than Catholics, that 
 they possess larger fortunes, more wealth, and in short greater 
 luxuries of every sort. 
 
 Hitherto we had always believed that at the final day of 
 judgment God would place on one side the good, on the 
 other the bad ; but according to this theory mankind should be 
 divided into the two categories of rich and poor. 
 
 In Protestant theology it would seem that in order to be saved, 
 respectability and wealth are essential. 
 
 M. Roussel, as usual with men of his school, contrasts what he 
 is pleased to call the wretchedness of Catholic Ireland with the 
 prosperity of Protestant Scotland, of course to the disparagement 
 of the former, forgetful of the different treatment these countries 
 
io6 Catholic and Protestant Countries 
 
 have received at the hands of the EngUsh governments. Like 
 persons suffering from jaundice, who see everything through a 
 yellow glass, he ferrets out the Catholic religion from places 
 where one would scarcely have supposed it would penetrate, and 
 contrasts it with a prosperous and wealthy Scotch county town. 
 
 He draws two pictures, one of an Irish fight and the use of 
 the shillelaghs, which he condemns, and another of an English 
 pugilistic encounter, which he deems worthy of all praise. 
 
 He enlarges on the qualities of these noble prize-fighters who 
 profess Protestantism, and the admirable blows of the fist which 
 are doubtless inspired by faith. 
 
 It is unnecessary to follow M. Roussel in the similar chain of 
 argument applied to Switzerland and other countries ; but as 
 regards Ireland, no one would dispute the worldly advantages of 
 the Protestants, nor would anyone who had studied history re- 
 fuse to allow that the poverty of the Catholics was in a great 
 measure the result of Protestant legislation. 
 
 If the Protestant party, for example, represent one-tenth only 
 of the population, by what right did they confiscate the whole of 
 the property and revenues of the Church ? And when M. Roussel, 
 in order to prove that the Catholics are no longer oppressed, in- 
 forms us that they possess a hierarchy composed of four arch- 
 bishops and twenty-four bishops, and 2,500 churches and over 
 2,000 priests, ought he not himself to be inspired with some 
 amount of admiration for this poverty-stricken race, who out of 
 their wretchedness and squalor, could yet find the means to 
 support their Church, whilst the Protestant bishops and clergy 
 were in possession of those revenues that anciently belonged to 
 them ? 
 
 How is it that a man calling himself a ?nimster of the Gospel 
 does not bear in mind a certain text, ' Verily, verily, I say unto 
 you, this poor widow has given more than all who have put into 
 the treasury, for they all have given of their abundance ; but she 
 
From an Eco7iomical Point of View. 107 
 
 of her want has given all she had, even all her substance.' How 
 is it that he can disregard the words of our Lord, ' I say unto you 
 again, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle 
 than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of heaven/ " 
 
 It is in this way that sectarian spirit blinds many- 
 otherwise excellent persons ; and in the attempt to put 
 forth moral and religious sentiments, their conclusions 
 become unwittingly in their essence materialistic and 
 anti-Christian. True national prosperity consists in a 
 nation's living so that it may have the majority of its 
 members in a fit state for their entry into another 
 world ; and no one can prove that Protestantism is 
 better calculated than Catholicism to produce such a 
 result. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 CATHOLICS AND COLONIZATION. 
 
 The pretended sterility of Catholic nations — Meaning of the 
 word colonization — Catholics in the Philippine Islands — In 
 India — English colonies — Dutch colonies — Catholicism in the 
 United States — Colonization of missionaries. 
 
 OMAN Catholic nations seem stricken with 
 sterihty, they no longer colonize, and they 
 seem to possess no powers of expansion. 
 The expression, vididtas et sterilitaSy 
 made use of by M. Thiers to describe the city of 
 Rome, might equally well be applied to them. 
 
 Their past has no doubt been brilliant, but the pre- 
 sent is gloomy, and their future prospect calculated 
 to cause uneasiness. 
 
 Such is the language used by our opponents. 
 No man of impartiality could accept such state- 
 ments. 
 
Catholics and Colonization. 109 
 
 Never at any epoch of the world's history has Rome 
 been less inactive and less like a widow, never has she 
 given less symptoms of sterility. 
 
 Never has the world witnessed the display of greater 
 extremes of devotion and hostility towards the See 
 of Peter, capitoli immobile saxiim, than at the present. 
 
 Does anyone imagine that it is merely for the sake 
 of admiring the ruins of the town of the Csesars, or 
 studying the recent projects of Garibaldi, that such 
 masses of pilgrims flock thither from all quarters of 
 the globe .'* Setting aside the triple crown of the tiara, 
 we ask in all seriousness, is there in the whole universe 
 a single individual who bears so unmistakably stamped 
 on his forehead the sign of royalty, as the present 
 pontiff, Pius IX. .? ' 
 
 Has there been in the last six centuries any Pope 
 whose teachings, injunctions, and even simple recom- 
 mendations have been more productive of result "^ 
 
 The re-establishment of a territorial hierarchy in 
 Holland and England, the organization of more than 
 fifty dioceses in America, the foundation of the vast 
 
 ' Since the above was written Pope Pius IX. has died, and the 
 accents of praise in which he has been spoken of by the Protes- 
 tant and Liberal press throughout Europe testify to the truth of 
 our remark. The reflection will apply equally to the present 
 Pontiff, Leo XIIL 
 
no Catholics and Colo7tization, 
 
 churches of the United States, of Australia, Tasmania, 
 &c. &c., and the colossal undertakings accomplished 
 by the College of the Propaganda, have slight appear- 
 ance of sterility.^ 
 
 At no period of her history has the Church, the 
 Spouse of Christ, been more closely united to her 
 earthly head, and shown greater symptoms of life 
 and vigour, than at present. 
 
 Witness the proclamation of the Dogma of the 
 Immaculate Conception, the CEcumenical Council of 
 1 87 1, the constitution Dei Ji litis, \hQ principal works 
 of philosophy upon the relations between reason and 
 faith, the constitution Pastor cetermcs, the encyclicals, 
 Mirari vos and Quanta cura, put forward as a warning 
 against the debased tendencies of modern continental 
 liberalism, and a score of other important documents 
 addressed iirbi et orbi. 
 
 At what epoch have schisms and heresies been less 
 dangerous for the unity of the Universal Church ? ^ 
 
 > The last act of Pius IX. was the decree for the re-establish- 
 ment of the hierarchy in Scotland. 
 
 ^ Alt-Catholicism, a sect commenced under the most favour- 
 able circumstances and nurtured in the bosom of the strongest 
 military power on the Continent, has disappointed even the 
 most sanguine. A proof of this is supplied by an official organ 
 of German Protestantism, entitled " Evangelische Lutherische 
 
Catholics and Colomzation. 
 
 II I 
 
 The personal devotion shown to the Pope himself, 
 as governor of the Universal Church, is one of the 
 most remarkable characteristics of the present century. 
 
 We can understand from a certain point of view 
 that a sincere opponent of the papacy may be alarmed 
 at facts like these, but we are at a loss to see how 
 anyone can deny them unless he is totally blind. 
 
 The nations that are subject to Rome no longer 
 colonize ! Who then do colonize .-^ 
 
 To whose credit must we place all the colonies at 
 present existing in the world if not to Catholics } 
 The Church is the only institution that has known and 
 still knows how to colonize, according to the testimony 
 of all history. 
 
 To colonize a countr}^, according to the historical 
 sense of the word, is to extend to it the benefits of 
 civilization. 
 
 For this reason therefore the pirates, or manufactur- 
 
 Kirchenzeihing''^ (1S78), which says that from the first it never 
 believed in its vitality or power. The article concludes thus : — 
 " At first they (the Alt-Catholics) thought of abiding by the de- 
 cisions of the Council of Trent, but before long they were com- 
 pelled to enter upon an alliance with the Greek, the Jansenist, 
 the American Dissenting Churches, as well as with the Anglican 
 and German aesthetic Protestants. It cannot be said that Alt- 
 Catholicism has done anything worthy of notice." 
 
112 Catholics and Colonization. 
 
 ing Anglo-Saxons, who in the last and present centuries 
 have colonized territories by means of eradicating the 
 native population at the very outset, cannot, strictly 
 speaking, be called colonists. 
 
 The English and Dutch are doubtless worthy of 
 great respect, but we should never look to their 
 colonial policy for fresh cause for admiration. 
 
 The most beautiful colonies of modern times (until 
 the era of the French Revolution of 1789) are due to 
 Spain, Portugal, and France during a period when 
 they were more thoroughly subject to Rome than 
 they are at the present time. The period when these 
 colonies began to escape the influence of the mother 
 country was precisely the period when the mother 
 country became less "subject to Rome," i.e. towards 
 the end of the seventeenth and beginning of the 
 eighteenth centuries, in the age of Voltaire, of Pombal, 
 of Choiseul, and of Mirabeau, of the Encyclopaedists, 
 and the persecutors of the Jesuits. 
 
 It is not necessary to dilate on this lamentable page 
 of history; it is well known how cleverly the English 
 and Dutch took advantage of passing events to seize 
 on flourishing settlements. 
 
 The Spanish and Portuguese colonies resisted 
 separation from the mother country until the time of 
 
Catholics and Colonization. 113 
 
 the departure of the last Jesuit. All the ancient colonies 
 bear traces of their former splendour (in the times when 
 they were subject to Rome). 
 
 Neither the Spaniards,^ the French, nor the Portu- 
 guese commenced the w^ork of colonization by pro- 
 scribing the indigenous inhabitants of the soil ; on the 
 contrary, they baptized and educated them, they inter- 
 married with them, and colonized after the manner of 
 Christians. The English and the Dutch have never 
 pursued the same course of action ; their practice is 
 to establish houses of business, which are intended to 
 be prosperous and advantageous for themselves. In 
 most cases the original Christian settlements founded 
 by the first settlers have been destroyed, and this is 
 particularly noticeable throughout the East. 
 
 The history of Christian colonization in India and 
 Japan by St. Francis Xavier is morally more worthy 
 of admiration and materially more wonderful than the 
 expedition of Alexander of Macedonia. 
 
 The English and Dutch colonizers have destroyed 
 the work of their predecessors in order to replace it 
 by a system of commercial speculation. 
 
 ' With the exception of the Spaniards in the Mexican colonies 
 under Pizarro, and the Portuguese at Goa, who were both 
 strongly condemned by the Church. 
 
 I 
 
1 14 Catholics and Colonization. 
 
 T. W. M. Marshall has written an excellent work 
 entitled " Christian Missions," and we know of no 
 treatise on political or social economy which gives 
 more complete information as to the true riches of 
 Christian nations, and on the conditions of civilization 
 amongst the nations that are " seated in the darkness 
 and shadow of death." 
 
 In the year 1858, at a meeting of Protestant mis- 
 sionaries, Mr. Crawford, ex-governor of Singapore, 
 made the following statement : " In the Philippine 
 Islands alone, the Spaniards converted several millions 
 of natives, and therefrom resulted an enormous ame- 
 lioration of their social condition." {See "Times," 2nd 
 December, 1858.) 
 
 Sir Henry Ellis, a staunch Protestant, confesses in 
 his "Journal of an Embassy to China" (chap. viii. 
 page 442), that great praise is due to the Spaniards 
 for the foundation of schools tJironghont the whole of the 
 colony, and for their incessant efforts to propagate 
 Christian doctrines and practices by the diffusion of 
 Christian ifistniction. 
 
 The influence of the clergy in the Philippine Islands, 
 notwithstanding that the Spaniards were in a very 
 small proportion to the natives, is attested by numerous 
 writers. Sir John Bowring, a man who has no leanings 
 
Catholics a7id Colo7iizatio7i, 115 
 
 towards Catholicism, wrote In 1859: "The Catholic 
 clergy exercise an influence which would appear 
 magical, If it were not regarded by partisans as 
 divine." 
 
 In the "Recollections of Manilla," Mr. Robert 
 MacMIcklng, a zealous Scotch Presbyterian, speaks 
 thus of the Philippine Islands, where he resided for 
 many years: — 
 
 " The nations were not subdued by ordinary warrior knights, 
 but by the soldiers of the cross, by priests who inflamed them 
 with their own zeal and ardour for the cause of Christ." 
 
 He states that the suppression of the Jesuits (who 
 were banished from the Islands in 1768), had the 
 most disastrous consequences for commerce and agri- 
 culture. 
 
 " The Church/' he proceeds to say, " has for a long period 
 proved that she is the most simple and. efficacious instrument 
 for the preservation of order and good government, since through 
 her means people are taught to read at least books of devotion. 
 
 The inhabitants of Manilla serving on board their vessels are 
 generally able to sign their names, which is very often not the 
 case with the English sailors in the Philippine Islands. 
 
 There are very few Indians who do not know how to read, and 
 this satisfactory result has been obtained in a country entirely 
 given up to the dominion of the clergy and colonized by 
 Spaniards, in a country without an education league and without 
 any form of compulsory instruction. 
 
 The original missionaries penetrated to places where soldiers 
 
ii6 Catholics aiid Colonization, 
 
 could only venture fully armed ; the sword in this case may be- 
 said to have given way to the toga, and this with the best of 
 results in the matter of subduing savage races to Christianity 
 and introducing among them arts and civilization. Hundreds 
 and thousands of these wild tribes are now peaceful cultivators 
 of the soil, having learnt from the missionaries the art of tilling 
 the ground, instead of subsisting as hitherto on the products of 
 the chase and in a continued state of mutual hostility." 
 
 M. de Laveleye brings forward an example to sup- 
 port his assertion that Catholic countries no longer 
 colonize, which is as follows :^ — 
 
 " The Comte de Beauvoir arrives at Canton. There he sees 
 the Islet of Sha-Myen, c^ded to France and England, situated in 
 the midst of the river. The traveller is struck with the contrast 
 bet\\^en the part ceded to England and that which belongs to 
 France. In six years' time (1867) there have sprung up a httle 
 Enghsh village, a Protestant Church, a cricket-ground, a training- 
 ground for race-horses, and spacious villas. A pathway separates 
 the British from the French territory. On our territory there are 
 clumps of uncultivated trees, filth, stray dogs, cats, and moles, 
 but not a single house." 
 
 'o 
 
 This example does not appear to have been well 
 selected, for we presume the Liege professor does 
 not consider English merchants who go to Canton 
 for the sake of doing a good stroke of business as 
 colonizers. 
 
 If the cricket-ground belongs to Protestant mis- 
 
 ' See " Voyage aiitoitr du Mo?ide^'' vol. ii. p. 247. 
 
CatJiolics and Colonizatio7i. 117 
 
 sionaries, we think he might find an object more worthy 
 of admiration. 
 
 The French missionaries in China have no time to 
 indulge in such sports : they go into the interior of the 
 country to preach the gospel and colonize the natives, 
 in which attempts they frequently suffer martyrdom. 
 It might be well to contrast this passage with the 
 following : ' — 
 
 "Though it is sad to see from Singapore onwards the 
 poverty of French commerce, the general impression is not so 
 hopeless ; it is true that England, the Queen of the Seas, is the 
 material sovereign of the Asiatic Empires, both on account of her 
 colossal trade, and because she imports her cottons, and exports 
 fabulous quantities of tea and silk ; but, nevertheless, France is 
 the country of ideas, and these ideas are introduced even into 
 the midst of the most unfrequented parts of China. 
 
 Let us assist and support with all our power this moral, inex- 
 haustible, and life-giving force, enhanced as it is by the purity 
 and the poverty of its agents, made illustrious by the blood of 
 its martyrs, and strengthened by its holy faith." 
 
 We quote the following remarkable passage- from 
 the work of a well-known European statesman and 
 diplomatist, Baron Hiibner, late Austrian Ambassador 
 in Paris, who begins by the assertion that it is possible 
 
 ' See Java, Siam, Canton, " Voyage aiitour du Monde ^^ p. 438, 
 9th edition. 
 
 * See'''' Promenade aiitour du Monde ^^^ by Baron Hiibner, vol. ii. 
 p. 233. Translated by Lady Herbert of Lea. 
 
ii8 CatJiolics and Colonization. 
 
 for a nation to be great and powerful without possess- 
 ing any vocation for colonizing, according to the 
 modern acceptation of the word. 
 
 li 
 
 What is the meaning of colonization ? Is it merely the 
 clearing of the soil ? In that case the colonies of Louis XIV. in 
 Canada will bear comparison with the most flourishing colonies 
 of any nation in the world. Is it the task of working the soil for 
 the profit of the emigrants ? In that case the English doubtless 
 deserve the palm which all the world gives them. 
 
 But if we understand by colonization the art of carrying civiliza- 
 tion into the hearts of the native population whose territory is 
 occupied, then the Portuguese and Spaniards of the sixteenth and 
 seventeenth centuries would appear to be the first colonizers of 
 the world. 
 
 History written by men not at all impartial, has tarnished 
 (and justly, if the facts that are recorded really took place) the 
 reputation of some of the Spanish and Portuguese conquerors, 
 and accused them of unheard-of acts of cruelty and oppression. 
 Even those who were praised for their moderation are said to 
 have made use of means that the spirit of our time would disap- 
 prove. But these kingdoms beyond the seas were rich and 
 prosperous, and the capitals of the presidencias became the 
 centres of civilization. 
 
 The natives flocked into them and took back to their homes 
 with the light of Christianity (though perhaps feeble and un- 
 certain) the ideas, customs, and practices (though very imperfect 
 also) of the civilized world, which effected a real and lasting im- 
 provement in their social condition. 
 
 Witnesses of undoubted veracity, travellers like Alexander von 
 Humboldt, visited the Spanish colonies at the beginning of the 
 present century, that is to say, at a time when Spain had long 
 descended from her status as a first-class power, and speak with 
 
CatJiolics and Colonization. 119 
 
 admiration of the organization she had left behind, of the regu- 
 larity of the administrative service in these colonies, of the 
 security and order which reigned there, and of the wisdom of 
 the colonial laws, drawn up and codified under the reigns of the 
 Philips. The court of Madrid drew from its transatlantic 
 possessions treasures of gold and precious stones, but in return 
 the mother country gave her blood. The constant emigration, 
 which finally exhausted Spain, is in fact one of the principal 
 causes of the rapid decline of this noble and chivalrous nation. 
 To this day, in many districts, the young men expatriate them- 
 selves in a body. In the provinces of the north, and especially 
 in the Asturias, only old men and women are to be found ; all 
 the able-bodied men have gone to the Havannah, Peru, or to 
 Rio de la Plata. 
 
 When traversing the hamlets buried in the gorges of the 
 mountains of Cantabria, I used to see notices put up in every 
 direction, announcing the departure of emigrant ships from 
 Santander, Gijon, and Ribadisella, for Cuba and South America, 
 all, according to the announcements, provided with surgeons and 
 chaplains. Alas ! both one and the other are necessary, for in 
 these passages the mortality is awful. Every one of these 
 emigrants (and formerly even more so than now) becomes, un- 
 known to himself, an agent for civilization. 
 
 Wherever the Spaniards have reigned we find Indian tribes 
 who have embraced Christianity, and adopted to a certain extent 
 the manners and customs of European nations. 
 
 The greater part of the politicians who figure at the head of 
 the various republics are of Indian origin. 
 
 I have had for colleagues Red Indians of the purest breed, 
 and I have seen ladies of the same complexion, elegantly dressed 
 by French dressmakers, expatiating on the delights of Madame 
 Patti's singing. 
 
 I do not cite these individuals as models of statesmen, or these 
 
I20 CatJwlics and Colonization. 
 
 fair critics as great authorities in music, but the fact is none the 
 less significant as being a result of Spanish colonization. 
 
 Can as much be said for the English ? Evidently not. I set 
 aside all question of India, which I have not yet visited, but 
 everywhere else, especially in North America, the contact of the 
 Anglo-Saxon race with semi-barbarous natives is fatal to the 
 latter. They either adopt the vices .of the Europeans, whilst 
 inwardly hating and avoiding them, or become gradually ex- 
 tinct, but in any case they remain what they previously were — 
 savages. 
 
 Comparisons of this sort are, however, of little use; it is better 
 to give to each nation its due share of praise and blame." 
 
 Further on Baron Hijbner writes thus : — 
 
 " France is rich enough to pay for her glory, her ideas, her 
 fancies, and sometimes even for her faults and mistakes. Since 
 the days of Louis XIV. she has made a point of being always to 
 the fore, and striking all nations with the prestige of her great- 
 ness. The pursuit of this line of policy imposes upon her in these 
 distant regions, sacrifices which are little in harmony with the 
 material interests of her traders, but such a consideration is 
 scarcely ever permitted to stand as an impediment in her 
 path. 
 
 She has undertaken the civilizing mission of protecting her 
 co-religionists in every latitude. We will not inquire too mi- 
 nutely into motives which may not be purely religious, but it 
 must be admitted the consequences following from such a course 
 of action have been, and are still productive of great services to 
 humanity. 
 
 In the world of ideas, the French are the most expansive 
 people in the universe ; it is the French who, as a nation, com- 
 municate to the world at large, both for good and evil, their ideas, 
 tastes, and fashions. 
 
Catholics afid Colonization. 121 
 
 To a greater degree than any other nation the French dishke 
 leaving their country, which accounts for the small number of 
 emigrants amongst their population. 
 
 French emigi'ants are the least numerous everywhere, and even 
 those one does meet with are not (saving honourable excep- 
 tions) the brightest specimens of their nation. The truth is, 
 France offers to her children space and means wherewith to 
 support them, to arrive at a comfortable independence, and occa- 
 sionally to riches, and the highest offices of the State. 
 
 Those who quit her shores rarely find beyond them the fortune 
 which they have disdained to seek at home. Side by side with 
 these emigrants, who are not always successful, there are others, 
 who while living and acting in comparative obscurity, surround 
 themselves in their distant country with a crown of imperishable 
 glory. 
 
 In China, as in every other foreign land, wherever the French 
 flag is seen floating over the building of a consulate, there ap- 
 pears in its neighbourhood the spire of a church, and by its side 
 a convent, school, and hospital. 
 
 There the intellects of the native inhabitants are being en- 
 lightened by civilization, and human hearts by faith ; there the 
 wounds of both souls and bodies are healed, miseries are 
 alleviated, and the apostolic virtues of charity and self-denial 
 are practised. 
 
 The missionaries and sisters of charity are not always French ; 
 Italy, Spain, Belgium, and other countries have furnished their 
 contingent, but the great majority of these Christian heroes and 
 heroines are the sons and daughters of France, and France is 
 the country that shields them with her powerful protection." ' 
 
 No modern writer is more trustworthy as regards 
 colonization than M. X. Marmier, from whose last in- 
 
 ' " Promenade aiitour du Monde,^^ p. 247 and following. 
 
122 Catholics and Colonization. 
 
 teresting work on France and her colonies/ we take 
 the following quotation : — 
 
 " A succession of disastrous wars and deplorable treaties 
 deprived us of the greater part of our ancient possessions, but 
 we have left behind us a lasting mark. 
 
 A distinguished Enghsh writer, Anthony Trollope, recently- 
 visited the Antilles, and witnessed the persistency of the attach- 
 ment to France in those islands formerly subject to her, the 
 government of which had not lasted without interruption for 
 centuries, but only for a few years. 
 
 Hayti, Tobago, Santa Lucia, and Trinidad are especially 
 remarkable in this way, the latter island having been originally 
 occupied by the Spaniards, then by the English, taken by the 
 French, and again handed over to the Spaniards, from whom it 
 was in turn seized and re-occupied by the English. 
 
 What language, says Trollope, prevails in this island, occupied 
 by an English governor, an English administrative council, an 
 English garrison, and lar^e and important English mercantile 
 houses of business ? 
 
 Neither English nor Spanish, but French alone ! 
 
 The whole population is French in language, customs, and 
 religion. Trollope also informs his readers that the island 
 possesses a resident Catholic Bishop who receives an annual 
 stipend from the Government of Great Britain, and that the 
 whole of it is distributed in charity. 
 
 At St. Vincent there is yet another example to be found of 
 the attraction exercised by our emigrants. When the English 
 seized the island, the Caraibes, who occupied a portion of it,* 
 rose in a body three different times to expel them, and to demand 
 the return of the French, whose rule they loved." 
 
 ^ ''''En Pays Lomtains,^^ par X. Marmier, de I'Academie 
 Frangaise. Hachette, Paris. 
 
CatJiolics and Colonization. 123 
 
 This same clever academician has collected together 
 a mass of similar statements, all tending to demon- 
 strate the following arguments : — 
 
 " It is often stated that France is unable to colonize, but is 
 such really the case ? 
 
 The history of our colonies is one of the noblest and most 
 attractive pages of our national history, and has been often 
 recounted at different times and in different places with great 
 learning and eloquence. 
 
 I make no pretence of stating anything new, but in collecting 
 the impressions of my journey, and in adding to it recent studies, 
 I only wish to point out the characteristic features and individual 
 qualities of colonization with which France has always been en- 
 dowed, such especially as courage in undertakings, generosity in 
 victory, and dignity in misfortune. 
 
 Other nations may have more brilliant victories to vaunt, but 
 none that will prove so durable or lasting." 
 
 The testimony of M. X. Marmier ought to carry as 
 much weight as that of M. Thiers, who forty years ago 
 scoffed at the future of the railway system, and who 
 remained to the day of his death a strong opponent 
 of free-trade. 
 
 The colonies of French missionaries in this century 
 recall the glory of the great Descupr adores^ of the 
 Iberian peninsula ; and Algeria, colonized by the 
 French during the last forty-five years, can well bear 
 comparison with the places conquered by the Anglo- 
 Saxons since the reign of Louis XV. 
 
124 Catholics and Colonization, 
 
 Father Marquette was the first person to discover 
 the Meschacabe, which was afterwards traversed to its 
 source by Robert Lasalle, in order to take possession 
 of Louisiana in the name of France, where Bienville 
 subsequently founded the city of New Orleans. 
 
 Quebec owes its foundation to another Frenchman 
 of the name of Champlain. 
 
 We quote from Marmier the following account of 
 the founding- of Montreal : — 
 
 'fc> 
 
 " In the year 1641 two small vessels left La Rochelle for 
 Canada. On board one of them was a saintly woman, Mdlle. 
 Mause, from the town of Langres, who sacrificed a brilliant 
 position in her own country to devote her life to works of charity 
 in the wild and barbarous regions of North America. On board 
 the other was a man of noble birth from the province of Cham- 
 pagne, M. de Maisonneuve, and with him a priest and a few 
 soldiers and labourers, making in all thirty persons. 
 
 These travellers reached Quebec in the month of August, 
 where the inhabitants implored them to remain. 
 
 The town was at that time composed of only 200 souls, and 
 thirty good people would have been a valuable reinforcement. 
 
 M. de Maisonneuve being pledged to proceed to Hochelaga, 
 was unable to comply with the request. 
 
 It was in vain that he was warned of the dangers to which he 
 would be exposed in landing on an island occupied by a power- 
 ful tribe of Indians, with only a handful of soldiers ; he always 
 replied he had not come to deliberate on such a question, but to 
 carry out the project he had undertaken, and that if there were 
 at Hochelaga as many Iroquois as trees on the plain, his honour 
 and sense of duty would still oblige him to proceed. 
 
Catholics and Colonization. 125 
 
 In the month of October he reached the shores of Hochelaga, 
 and immediately constructed a few huts and a chapel of wood. 
 
 Mdlle. Mause organized in the same spot a hospital, and a 
 sister of charity from Troyes established an institution of free 
 education for young girls. 
 
 A few tents situated in the middle of the forest, a chapel of 
 wood, with leaves for its roof, and a bell suspended from a fir- 
 tree, a hospital for the sick, and a school for the poor ; such 
 were the first beginnings of the great city of Montreal, which 
 now contains more than 80,000 inhabitants. No one can pre- 
 tend that the Anglo-Saxons or Dutch settlers acted in a similar 
 way. 
 
 One of the jewels of the colonial empire of Great Britain is 
 the island of Mauritius, called by its pacific conqueror, the 
 Chevaher de Fougeres, commander of the * Triton/ 'Isle de 
 France.' 
 
 This brave officer erected on the shore a cross, decorated with 
 fleurs-de-lys^ and the following inscription : — ' Jubet hie Gallia 
 stare Crueem.^ " 
 
 We have no hesitation in dilating on remembrances 
 like these, since they are more glorious for France than 
 all the immortal conquests of 1789, or all the victories 
 of the First Empire. 
 
 Jacques Cartier, who with two small vessels made 
 
 the circuit of Newfoundland, to ascend the river St. 
 
 Lawrence, thus describes the commencement of the 
 
 expedition, which we quote in order to show the spirit 
 
 in which it was undertaken : — 
 
 " On Sunday, the Feast of Pentecost, by the order of the 
 captain, and with common goodwill, all on board went to con- 
 
126 CatJwlics and Colonization. 
 
 fession, and together received holy communion in the cathedral 
 church of St. Malo, after which we all presented ourselves in the 
 choir of the above-named church before the bishop of the dio- 
 cese, and received his special benediction." 
 
 Father Marquette, the discoverer of the river Mis- 
 sissippi, wrote the following admirable words : — 
 
 " If the voyage had had no other result than the salvation of 
 one soul, I should have considered my labours well rewarded." 
 
 The whole history of the colonization of North 
 America by the Yankees does not present one figure 
 so noble as that of Montcalm, the hero of French 
 Canada. 
 
 It is most probable that if Spain, Portugal, and 
 France had not suffered themselves to be weakened 
 and despoiled of their rights, by the Caesarism of the 
 Bourbons, and by the political doctrines of 1789, called 
 liberal, they would be to-day what they w^ere formerly, 
 and what they may yet again become, the first 
 colonizers of the world. The masterpiece of the 
 colonial policy of modern England is India, but even 
 here in the metropolis of their Eastern Empire (Cal- 
 cutta) the English only follow the example of France 
 in the secondary matter of commercial interests. 
 
 Lord Macaulay^ writes thus : — 
 
 1 " Critical and Historical Essays," by Lord Macaulay. 
 
CatJiolics and Colo7iization. 127 
 
 " The man who first saw that it was possible to found an Euro- 
 pean empire on the ruins of the Mogul monarchy was Dupleix. 
 
 His restless, capacious, and inventive mind had formed this 
 scheme, at a time when the ablest servants of the English com- 
 pany were busied only about invoices and bills of lading. 
 
 The arts both of war and policy which a few years later were 
 employed with such signal success by the English, were first 
 understood and practised by this ingenious and inspiring French- 
 man. He saw that the natives of India, under European com- 
 manders, might be formed into armies such as Frederick or 
 Saxe would be proud to command." 
 
 If it be true that no nations who are subject to 
 Rome any longer colonize, what nations may truly be 
 said to colonize } . 
 
 Lutheran Prussia and Calvinistic Switzerland cer- 
 tainly do not. 
 
 Let us examine as to the part taken by England, 
 Holland, and the United States of America. 
 
 These latter nations have undoubtedly distinguished 
 themselves in our day by their practical and general 
 knowledge, and by their energetic adherence to a cer- 
 tain line of commercial and colonial policy, a line that 
 must, however, be carefully distinguished from the 
 civihzing and Christian work of colonization, according 
 to its proper and original definition. 
 
 The present colonial policy of England is neither 
 Protestant, Catholic, nor anti-Catholic ; it has for its 
 
128 Catholics and Colonizatio7i. 
 
 one object the mercantile interest of Great Britain ; 
 the doctrines of Adam Smith are practised, without, 
 however, excluding the simultaneous application by 
 individuals of the great religious principles of coloniza- 
 tion formerly employed with so much success by the 
 Spaniards, the French, and the Portuguese. 
 
 The greater number of the colonies at present in 
 the possession of England are recent acquisitions, for- 
 merly in the hands of the French, the Dutch, and 
 the Portuguese. Great Britain no longer possesses 
 New England (one of her rare creations), a colony 
 which she may be said to have founded in spite of 
 herself 
 
 New England was originally a colony composed of 
 fugitive malcontents, misanthropes, and sectarians, all 
 voluntary exiles from their native land (who would 
 willingly have retained them had she been able) by 
 reason of the religious persecutions of the Stuarts. 
 
 The code of New England was conceived in the 
 most ferocious spirit, and was enforced with relentless 
 severity. The Puritans of New England outdid in 
 their fierce intolerance those whose milder tyranny 
 had compelled them to seek relief in exile. A simple 
 extract from the law passed at Plymouth on the 14th 
 October, 1657, will be sufficient to display the mild 
 
Catholics and Colonization. 129 
 
 and Christian policy of those Protestant civilizers, 
 who themselves had suffered for conscience sake : — 
 
 " It is further enacted that if any Quaker or Quakers shall 
 presume, after they have once suffered what the law requireth, 
 to come into this jurisdiction, every such male Quaker shall, for 
 the first offence, have one of his ears cut off, and for the second 
 offence have the other ear cut off," &c. " Every female Quaker 
 shall be severely whipped, and for the second offence shall have 
 her tongue bored through with a hot iron," (Sec. (S:c. 
 
 The contrast offered by the different policy pursued 
 by Catholic and Puritan colonists should put to shame 
 those who are so lavish in their accusations of Catholic 
 persecution. When the Catholics had power, they 
 proclaimed the broadest toleration, and fullest liberty 
 to every sect of Christians. In Catholic Maryland 
 there was no ear -cropping, or boring of tongues 
 w^ith hot pokers. Such exhibitions of brotherly love 
 were reserved for the Puritans of Plymouth. The 
 illustrious name of Lord Baltimore is closely allied 
 with toleration in unfurling the banner of civil and 
 religious liberty upon the continent of North America. 
 The disfranchised friends of prelacy from Massachu- 
 setts and the Puritans from Virginia were welcomed 
 to equal liberty of conscience and political rights in 
 the Catholic province of Maryland. These halcyon 
 days did not long continue, for when the Protestants 
 
 K 
 
130 CatJiolics and Colonization. 
 
 got the upper hand, they persecuted the Catholics, who 
 had extended liberty to all. Cardinal Manning, Arch- 
 bishop of Westminster, in a reply to a pamphlet by 
 Mr. Gladstone on the Vatican Council of 1870, relates 
 the history of the foundation of Maryland in the fol- 
 lowing words '} — 
 
 "Lord Baltimore, who had been Secretary of State under 
 James I. in 1633, emigrated to the American plantations, where, 
 through Lord Strafford's influence, he had obtained a grant of 
 land. 
 
 He was accompanied by men of all minds, who agreed chiefly 
 in the one desire to leave behind them the miserable religious 
 conflicts which then tormented England. They named their 
 new country Maryland, and there they settled. The oath of the 
 governor was in these terms : ^ I will not, by 7nysel/or any other, 
 directly or indirectly, molest atiy person professiiig to believe in 
 yestts Christ, for or in respect of religio7i.^ 
 
 Lord Baltimore invited the Puritans of Massachusetts, who, 
 like himself, had renounced their country for conscience sake, to 
 come to Maryland. 
 
 In 1649, when active persecution had sprung up again in 
 England, the council of Mar^-land, on the 21st of April, passed 
 this statute: 'And whereas the forcing of the conscience in 
 matters of religion hath frequently fallen out to be of dangerous 
 consequences in the commonwealth where it has been practised, 
 and for the more quiet and peaceable government of the pro- 
 vince and the better to preserve mutual love and amity among 
 
 * See "Vatican Decrees in their bearing on Civil Allegiance." 
 By Henry Edward, Archbishop of Westminster. P. 91. Long- 
 mans. 
 
Catholics and Colonization. 131 
 
 the inhabitants, no person within the province professing to 
 believe in Jesus Christ shall be any ways troubled, molested, or 
 discountenanced for his or her religion, or in the free exercise 
 thereof.' 
 
 The Episcopalians and Protestants fled from Virginia into 
 Mar>'land. Such was the commonwealth, founded by a Catholic 
 upon the broad moral law I have laid down — that faith is an act 
 of the will, and that to force men to profess what they do not 
 believe, is contrary to the law of God, and that to generate faith 
 by force is morally impossible. It was by conviction of the 
 reason and persuasion of the will that the world-wide unity of 
 faith and communion were slowly built up among the nations. 
 
 When once shattered, nothing but conviction and persuasion 
 can restore it. Lord Baltimore was surrounded by a multitude 
 scattered by the great wreck of the Tudor persecutions. 
 
 He knew that God alone could build them up again into 
 unity, but that the equity of charity might enable them to protect 
 and help each other and to promote the common weal. I cannot 
 refrain from continuing the history. The Puritan commonwealth 
 in England brought on a Puritan revolution in Maryland. They 
 acknowledged Cromwell and disfranchised the whole Catholic 
 population. Liberty of conscience was declared, but to the ex- 
 clusion of popery, prelacy, and licentiousness of opinion. Penal 
 laws came in due course. Quakers in Massachusetts for the first 
 offence lost one ear, for the second the other, and for the third 
 had their tongue seared with a red-hot iron. Women were 
 whipped and men hanged for religion." 
 
 England has been severely punished for her into- 
 lerant spirit by the loss of the only countries she 
 could (before the sixteenth century) truly lay a claim 
 to have colonized by peopling with her own sons. 
 
132 Catholics and Colo7tization. 
 
 The punishment has been the more severe from the 
 fact that she has had to witness the founding of a rival 
 nation speaking the same Anglo-Saxon tongue, upon 
 the territories that formerly belonged to her. 
 
 The Dutch at present are not in possession of 
 a single colony of their own creation — that is to 
 say^ of any colony enjoying the institutions, the man- 
 ners, the customs, and the religion of the mother 
 country. 
 
 Their Indian settlement is an enormous counting- 
 house of industry and commerce, protected by a 
 powerful army ; they seek their fortunes in India, and 
 return to Europe to enjoy the benefit of their income 
 at the Hague, Amsterdam, or Brussels, but they do 
 not colonize in the Spanish, Portuguese, or French 
 sense of the word. 
 
 We make no reproaches, but we wish to point out 
 the difference between the Catholic ideas of coloniza- 
 tion and those entertained by the various non-Catholic 
 sects. 
 
 The United States, actuated by the political genius 
 of the Anglo-Saxon race, owes its extraordinary and 
 unprecedented development chiefly to immigration. 
 
 We have not at present before us the complete 
 statistics of the wonderful westward movement of the 
 
Catholics and Colonization, 133 
 
 European nations, but we entertain no doubt that one 
 of the principal causes of the greatness of North 
 America consists in the large importation of Catholics. 
 
 England has frequently boasted that she is the 
 mother-land of America, and yet she has little claim 
 even to this. The majority of English-speaking emi- 
 grants that have flocked there in such large numbers 
 during the last thirty or forty years are Irish ; but to go 
 farther back in history, the first European who went 
 to America was Christopher Columbus, an Italian ; the 
 second, Americus Vespucci, a Portuguese ; the third, 
 Sebastian Cabot, a Spaniard; and yet these persons 
 are reckoned the founders of America. 
 
 Was it not the Dutch who settled New York, and 
 the Swedes Jersey } Was it not the Danes who 
 settled Delaware, and the Huguenots South Carolina, 
 the Spanish Florida, and the French Louisiana ? 
 The very capital in which Congress is held was pre- 
 sented by Carroll, an Irishman, and by careful exami- 
 nation it will be seen that from the lakes to the gulf, 
 and from ocean to ocean, there is not ten per cent, of 
 English blood in the veins of the people. 
 
 From the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, in many 
 , instances came whole villages, with their parish priest, 
 burgomaster, and schoolmaster. 
 
134 Catholics and Colonization. 
 
 All the new Western States of the Union are 
 peopled by Catholics, and in order to be convinced of 
 the importance of the Catholic population of the 
 United States, it is sufficient to consider the ecclesi- 
 astical hierarchy which has sprung up during the last 
 half century, and now numbers forty episcopal sees. 
 
 The French Catholic population is increasing in 
 English Canada, where Irish Catholics (the true 
 colonizing missionaries of Great Britain) have settled 
 in great numbers. 
 
 In Australia, New Zealand, and Tasmania the 
 number of the hierarchy is evident proof of the nume- 
 rous Catholic population. We do not profess to claim 
 exclusively for Catholics the privilege (often mixed 
 with bitterness) of emigration, but our impression is 
 that in the great colonizing movement which this age 
 has witnessed among the Anglo-Saxon races, Catholic 
 civilization holds the first rank. 
 
 We must not omit one instance of Catholic coloni- 
 zation that has occurred within the last few years. 
 After the dispersion of the Papal Zouaves consequent 
 on the seizure of Rome by the Italian Government, a 
 portion of that body who were from Canada obtained 
 lands in the forests of their native country, cleared the 
 ground, and erected a small village which is rapidly 
 
Catholics and Colonization. 135 
 
 rising into a town and bringing the adjacent territory 
 into cultivation. This small colony has already 
 prospered beyond all expectation, and is ruled in the 
 spirit of true Christianity, such as was witnessed in 
 the early days of the Church. The village bears the 
 name of Piopolis, in honour of the venerated Pontiff 
 Pius IX. 
 
 Much might be said on the question of the British 
 government in India, did this work permit of details, 
 but no one can dispute the energy, intelligence, and 
 courage that have been displayed by English states- 
 men in their dealings with that empire. 
 
 It is no doubt desirable that India should remain 
 in the hands of Great Britain, for though the English 
 may not have fulfilled the duties of Christian 
 colonizers in the true sense of the term, they have 
 nevertheless not prevented others from doing it for 
 them, and have always acted as an obstacle to the 
 terrible anarchy that would otherwise exist amongst 
 the natives. 
 
 The courage, discipline, and bravery of English 
 troops throughout this immense empire, eight times 
 as vast, and six times as thickly populated as the 
 United Kingdom of Great Britain, and kept in hand 
 hy a small body of Europeans, certainly presents a 
 
136 Catholics and Colonization, 
 
 spectacle which cannot fail to reflect credit on the 
 present polity of the English monarchy. 
 
 Economists may admire the vast network of rail- 
 ways and telegraphs with which the administration of 
 the governors has covered the country, and financiers 
 may calculate the dividends that the English residents 
 annually receive after a final settlement of accounts ; 
 but as far as we are concerned, we think the re- 
 sults obtained by the old colonization of the Portu- 
 guese and the French, and the actual present condi- 
 tion of the Spanish colony of the Phihppine Islands 
 are more worthy of praise. 
 
 The action of the English, both in India and in the 
 Chinese seas, is poor in comparison with the heroic 
 conquests of St. Francis Xavier in the sixteenth cen- 
 tury, when, armed with the Gospel and the crucifix, he 
 traversed the country which practically became the 
 scene of his martyrdom, and whose annals are written 
 in the blood of the missionaries in Asia. 
 
 The work of the propagation of the faith (by which 
 thousands are made Christians), the most colossal 
 instrument of colonization known in history, was 
 originally the idea of a poor servant at Lyons, who 
 formed the conception of a large number of persons 
 who should contribute a certain amount weekly. 
 
 / 
 I 
 
Catholics and Colonization, 137 
 
 This simple idea, blessed by the Church, has been 
 developed ; and the money thus collected serves to 
 send to all parts of the earth men who become instru- 
 ments of civilization, and whose blood possesses the 
 marvellous property of fertilizing the nations who 
 commit the crime of shedding it. ''Sanguis martyrinn 
 semen Christianoriim " (*' The blood of martyrs is the 
 seed of Christianity "). 
 
 We are aware that missionaries are sent out also by 
 the various Protestant sects, and we have no wish to 
 criticize the acts of men who work in a spirit of devo- 
 tion and self-denial ; but we must be permitted to 
 make the remark that the results of Protestant mis- 
 sions, however worthy of respect in the intention of 
 their promoters, cannot be placed on a par with the 
 striking results obtained by the Catholic apostolate.^ 
 
 Father Smet, an eminent Jesuit (whose hfe and 
 letters have been published by Father Deynoodt), was 
 by himself more powerful amongst the Red Indians 
 than the government of the United States. 
 
 His charity, inspired by his faith, had been the 
 means of subduing many tribes, and when the govern- 
 ment wished to obtain anything from the ancient 
 
 ' See the writings of Cardinal Wiseman on " the tmfruitfid- 
 ness of Protestant missions to the heathen^ 
 
138 Catholics and Colonization, 
 
 possessors of the soil, they were obliged to turn to 
 this Belgian minister of the gospel. The companions 
 of this civilizer, this veritable doctor of colonization, 
 were all Belgian priests. 
 
 There is at present a special American foundation 
 in the University of Louvain, instituted forthe expres s 
 purpose of sending out missionaries to America. 
 
 The Bengal mission is in the hands of Belgian 
 Jesuits, who possess a flourishing college in the pre- 
 sidency, and render more service to the English 
 authorities than a whole regiment of infantry. 
 
 The learned Father Carbonelle, secretary of the 
 Scientific Society of Brussels, has but recently returned 
 from this mission. 
 
 The soil on which large numbers of these men have 
 sacrificed their health, in this work of civilization, is 
 rendered illustrious by the labours of ancient Jesuits, 
 that indefatigable body, who so perseveringly seek to 
 repair what has been destroyed by want of civilization 
 and the spirit of error. 
 
 Professor David Forbes, F.R.S., relates how in one 
 of his scientific expeditions in South America, he fell 
 into the hands of a body of Indians, who would have 
 scalped him had he not been delivered from them by 
 some black men called Jesuits. These men were 
 
Catholics and Colonization, 139 
 
 engaged in the work of the evangelization of the 
 savages, about a hundred miles from the shores of the 
 Atlantic, at the foot of the Cordilleras, where for the 
 love of Christ they lived in the midst of the heathen, 
 and spent their lives in educating and instructing 
 them. Professor Forbes declares that they are every- 
 where treated with respect, and that in his estimation 
 they are the greatest colonizers of the day. 
 
 Father Verbiest, late chaplain to the Military 
 Academy at Brussels, wishing to carry the word of 
 truth to the country where his compatriot the 
 Franciscan John of Ruysbroek had toiled in bygone 
 days, laid the foundation of a mission in Mongolia, 
 and met with his death in a desert between the 
 40th and 50th degree'of latitude. This work of civili- 
 zation is still living and productive. 
 
 We must not omit to make mention of the religious 
 congregations of women who go out in large numbers 
 to instruct the young, both in Africa, Asia, America, 
 and Australia. 
 
 The mother house of Notre Dame de Namur in 
 Belgium has alone founded more than twenty stations 
 in the most varied latitudes. 
 
 Facts like these speak volumes on the question of 
 colonization, and we feel no hesitation in asking the 
 
140 
 
 Catholics and Colonization. 
 
 unprejudiced of all creeds, whether it is reasonable to 
 make the assertion that Catholics do not colonize, and 
 whether those who make the assertion can have rightly 
 studied the question of colonization ? 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 CATHOLICISM AND CIVIL LIBERTY. 
 
 Persecution, revolution, and tyranny in Protestant and Catholic 
 countries — Moral characteristics of the great French Revolu- 
 tion — Civil liberty in Italy — In Belgium — Meaning of the 
 word political liberty in the mouths of the Neo-Protestant 
 school of Continental liberals — Their object in preaching Pro- 
 testantism in Catholic countries — Essays of Quinet and 
 Eugene Sue — Discussion of liberty amongst Continental 
 liberals. 
 
 ERSECUTION has not only been more 
 generally practised by Protestants than by 
 Catholics, but it has been more warmly 
 defended and supported by the former 
 than by the latter. 
 
 Bergier defies Protestants to mention a single town 
 In which their predecessors, on becoming masters of it, 
 tolerated a slncfle Catholic. 
 
142 Catholicism and Civil Liberty. 
 
 Rousseau, who was educated a Protestant, says,^ that 
 "the Reformation was intolerant from its cradle, and 
 its authors universally persecutors." 
 
 Bayle, a celebrated Calvinist, has published much 
 the same thing. 
 
 The Huguenot minister Jurieu acknowledges the 
 fact " that Geneva, Switzerland, the various principali- 
 ties of Germany, England, Scotland, Sweden, and 
 Denmark had all employed the power of the State to 
 abolish Popery, and establish the Reformation." ^ 
 
 The moderate Melancthon wrote a book ^ in defence 
 of religious persecution. Calvin was its great champion, 
 and Beza, who succeeded him, wrote a folio work in 
 defence of it.* 
 
 John Knox advocates it in all his writings.^ 
 
 Edwin Sandys, Bishop of London, published a book 
 in vindication of it.^ 
 
 James I. was repeatedly urged by parliament to 
 enforce the laws against Catholics with greater rigour, 
 
 ' " Lettres de la Montr 
 
 "^ " Tab. Lett.^^ quoted by Bossuet, avertiss., p. 625. 
 " "Z>f HcEvetecis piiniendis a civili magistratUy&^c.., a Theod. 
 Beza." 
 
 * '•'■ De Hceret. piiniend.^'' Beza. 
 
 * See Milner's " End of Religious Controversy," p. 439. 
 
 * Ger. Brandt, " Hist. Reform.," abridg., vol. i. p. 234. 
 
Catholicism and Civil Liberty. 143 
 
 and Archbishop Abbott warned him against the sin of 
 toleration. {See Rushworth's collection, vol. i. p. 144.) 
 
 Archbishop Usher and eleven Irish bishops pre- 
 sented an address to Charles I. against toleration, in 
 which they declared that to give toleration to Papists 
 was a grievous sin. {See Leland's " Hist, of Ireland," 
 vol. ii. p. 482, and Neal's " Hist," vol. ii. p. 469.) 
 
 The Presbyterian divines assembled at Sion College 
 condemned as an error "the doctrine of toleration," 
 under the abused term, as they expressed it, "of liberty 
 of conscience." * 
 
 James II. was deposed by the English nation be- 
 cause he wished that all his subjects should enjoy the 
 same privileges ; and to the present day, the mere fact 
 of a man's being a Catholic is sufficient to make his 
 return to Parliament in any English county almost an 
 impossibility. 
 
 Dr. Milner says, with great justice, that when 
 Catholic States and princes persecuted Protestants, 
 it was done in favour of an ancient religion, which 
 had been established in their country perhaps a 
 thousand or fifteen hundred years, and which had 
 long preserved the peace, order, and morality of 
 their respective subjects, and when at the same time 
 
 * " History of Churches of England and Scotland," vol. iii. 
 
144 Catholicism and Civil Liberty. 
 
 they clearly saw that any attempt to alter this religion 
 would unavoidably produce disorders and sanguinary 
 contests among them. 
 
 Protestants, on the contrary, everywhere persecuted 
 on behalf of new systems, in opposition to the esta- 
 blished laws of the Church and of the respective 
 States. 
 
 Nothing was ever more unfounded than the notion 
 that Protestantism is favourable to freedom of con- 
 science, or that Protestants were not persecutors. 
 
 Protestants not only persecuted Catholics, but they 
 persecuted each other to the death. 
 
 In Scotland the Reformation may be said to have 
 begun by the assassination of Cardinal Beaton, to 
 which Knox was a party, and to which Fox, in his 
 " Acts and Monuments," says the murderers were in- 
 stigated by the Spirit of God. " With such indecent 
 haste," says Robertson, "did the very persons who had 
 just escaped ecclesiastical tyranny proceed to imitate 
 the example" (Robertson's "History of Scotland"). 
 See also the answer of the Presbytery to the King and 
 Council in 1596, concerning the Catholic Earls of 
 Huntley, ErroU, &c., which declared that the civil power 
 could not spare them, as they were guilty of idolatry, 
 a crime punishable by death. 
 
Catholicism and Civil Liberty. 145 
 
 In France it is well known that wherever the Hugue- 
 nots carried their victorious arms against their sove- 
 reign, they prohibited the exercise of the Catholic 
 religion, slaughtered the priests, and burnt the 
 churches and convents (Maimbourg, " Hist. Cal- 
 vinism "). 
 
 One of their own writers, Nicholas Froumanteau, 
 confesses that in the single province of Dauphiny they 
 killed 256 priests and 112 monks {'' Liv. de France''). 
 
 In these scenes the famous Baron des Adrets sig- 
 nalized his notions of Protestant civilization by forcing 
 the Catholic prisoners to jump from the towers upon 
 the pikes of his soldiers, and by compelling his own 
 children to wash their hands in the blood of the 
 Catholics. 
 
 In the Low Countries it was an ordinary thing for the 
 Calvinists to assault the clergy in the discharge of their 
 functions. Wherever Vandermeck and Sonoi, both of 
 them lieutenants of the Prince of Orange, carried 
 their arms, they uniformly put to death in cold blood 
 all the priests and religious they could lay hands on, 
 as at Dort, Middlebourg, Delft, &c. (" Hist. Ref. des 
 Pays Basl' by the Protestant minister, De Brandt). 
 
 Feller, a celebrated biographer, states that Vander- 
 meck slaughtered more unoffending Catholics in the 
 
146 Catholicism and Civil Liberty, 
 
 year 1752 than Alva executed Protestants during his 
 whole government. 
 
 Monsieur Keroux, a Protestant writer in '^ U Abrege 
 de VHistoire de la Hollande',' draws a frightful picture 
 of the barbarities committed against the Catholic 
 peasants of North Holland. Amongst the more illus- 
 trious foreign Protestants who suffered death by the 
 violence of other Protestants may be mentioned the 
 names of Servetus, Gentilis, Felix Mans, Rotman, 
 and Barnevelt. 
 
 In England during the reign of Edward VI. many 
 Protestant dissenters were condemned and burnt. {See 
 Stow's '' Annals.") During the reign of Elizabeth 
 large numbers of persons suffered torture and death 
 for their religious opinions. Full descriptions of those 
 who were thus punished may be found in the works 
 of Stow, Brandt, Collier, Neal, &c. 
 
 Under James I., Legat and Wrightman were publicly 
 executed for Arianism, and under Charles I. the 
 dissenters complained loudly of their sufferings, and 
 particularly that four of their number — Leighton, 
 Burton, Prynne, and Bastwick — were cropped of their 
 ears and set in the pillory. {See Limborch's ''History 
 of Inquisition," Neal, &c.) 
 
 When the dissenters got the upper hand they con- 
 
Catholicism and Civil Liberty. 147 
 
 tinued to put Catholics to death and treated the 
 Episcopalians with great severity, at the same time 
 appointing days of humiliation and fasting to beg 
 God's pardon for not being more intolerant. {See 
 Neal's "History of Puritans," "History of Churches 
 of England and Scotland.") 
 
 The editor of De Laune's " Plea for Nonconformists" 
 says that this writer was one of 8,000 Protestant dis- 
 senters who perished in prison in the single reign of 
 Charles H., merely for dissenting from the Church 
 of England as by law established. For the capital 
 punishment and other sufferings of the Quakers our 
 readers may refer to Penn's *' Life of George Fox." 
 
 The history of the persecutions perpetrated by the 
 Established Church of England upon Catholics on 
 the one hand and Protestant dissenters on the other, 
 is one of the blackest in the page of time. 
 
 Protestant countries can lay no claim to be exempt 
 from anarchy and revolution. 
 
 To begin with, neither Switzerland nor the United 
 States of America can be considered harbours of 
 refuge against them ; the latter, having but lately 
 emerged from the effects of a terrible civil war which 
 may break out again at any moment, has suffered 
 much from discontent amongst the masses, and was. 
 
148 Catholicism and Civil Liberty, 
 
 but a short time ago, a prey to the horrors of blood- 
 shed owing to a general strike of railway labourers 
 throughout the whole country. 
 
 The former is full of the elements of anarchy and 
 discontent. The different Swiss cantons are per- 
 petually at variance, although the common object of 
 self-defence is able to silence many differences. 
 
 Since the Reformation, Switzerland has had its full 
 share of insurrection and revolution, and at the pre- 
 sent moment offers an example of a tyrannical govern- 
 ment and a discontented population. 
 
 Witness the arbitrary expulsion of Monsignor Mer- 
 millod, Vicar Apostolic of Geneva and Bishop of 
 Hebron, in the year 1872 ; the forcible ejection of 
 Catholic priests and people from their lawful churches, 
 and the intrusion of State-appointed apostate clergy 
 in the Jura,^ in spite of repeated petitions against such 
 proceedings. 
 
 ' M. Loyson, an apostate French Carmelite, was installed by 
 the civil authorities of Geneva as cure of the parish, in defiance 
 of the wishes of the people, who at once withdrew from his 
 ministrations. The sequel is amusing. M. Loyson became 
 disgusted with the situation, his followers being composed of 
 atheists and freethinkers, and threw up the post, declaring that 
 he did so because those who had appointed him were neither 
 liberals nor Catholics. " * 
 
Catholicism and Civil Liberty, 149 
 
 In Geneva a Government clique, composed of Pro- 
 testants, Jews, and Atheists, have seized on all the 
 ecclesiastical property, even that which had been 
 originally given by private individuals,^ and in Lau- 
 sanne they have made several attempts to upset the 
 whole machinery of ecclesiastical legislation. 
 
 Till near the close of the seventeenth century Swit- 
 zerland was distracted by dissensions, and in the year 
 1703 the whole of the Catholic and Protestant cantons 
 were openly arrayed against each other. From this 
 period to the close of the eighteenth century internal 
 discord paved the way for external aggression, and 
 rendered it an easy prey to the great French Republic. 
 
 The Dutch have had many more periods of anarchy 
 than their Belgian neighbours of the same race. 
 
 For the space of two centuries Holland was torn 
 asunder by a spirit of faction, and was only saved 
 from the absolutism of the House of Orange by the 
 partial want of success of the Calvinists. 
 
 Had these latter been altogether triumphant, Hol- 
 
 ^ The church of Notre Dame, built by the contributions of 
 Catholics throughout the world, has been forcibly taken posses- 
 sion of by the government and handed over to the sect of 
 Alt- Catholics. These latter are so few in number and so irreli- 
 gious in practice that they make but little use of it, and it was 
 recently lent for a musical entertainment. 
 
150 Catholicism and Civil Liberty. 
 
 land would have shared the political fate of Sweden, 
 Denmark, and Prussia. 
 
 Towards the close of the eighteenth century the 
 troubled state of the country induced the Dutch to 
 seek foreign intervention, and their land was suc- 
 cessively occupied by the Prussians, the French, and 
 the English. In 1787 the Prussians were masters of 
 Amsterdam, and openly espoused the cause of the 
 House of Orange. 
 
 In 1795 a fellow-soldier of Bernadotte reduced the 
 whole kingdom of Holland to the state of a depart- 
 ment of the great French Republic. 
 
 Perpetual quarrels between Arminians and Calvinists 
 headed by Arminius and Gomarus distracted the 
 country. 
 
 The Protestants of North Germany until the year 
 1848 were (like the Assyrians or Babylonians) in a 
 state of comparative tranquillity because they were 
 completely crushed under the heel of a civil despotism, 
 the most consummate in the record of modern history. 
 
 The Prussian historian Leo declares that the 
 natural result of the Reformation was the increase of 
 power amongst the sovereigns and various rulers 
 throughout Germany, and the destruction of the 
 liberty of the lesser nobles and the peasants. 
 
Catholicism arid Civil Liberty. 151 
 
 The Thirty Years' War which devastated Germany 
 was the distinct legacy of the Reformation, and the 
 war of seven years arose from the designs and in- 
 trigues of the Prussian sovereigns. Germans against 
 Germans, monarch against monarch in a scramble for 
 territory, and the people indifferent and with no in- 
 terest at issue, was the spectacle presented in Northern 
 Germany. 
 
 The sovereigns made conquests according to the 
 number of their highly-disciplined troops. 
 
 War was carried on by them just as players at chess 
 or draughts carry on warfare and calculate the powers 
 and effect of each piece. The military system of the 
 German governments engendered a spirit of inter- 
 ference not only with the labouring class of the com- 
 munity, but with all business and employment. 
 
 At the present moment Prussia is in a state of re- 
 volutionary ferment, of which no one can foresee the 
 result. Up to the year i860 socialism hardly existed 
 in Germany; since then it has made rapid strides. 
 In the year 1869 it had six journals that represented 
 its principles ; now it has fifty, in addition to almanacs, 
 pamphlets, and flying sheets, which are circulated 
 by hundreds of thousands. Herr Most, a celebrated 
 socialist leader, declared not long ago at a public 
 
152 CatJiolicism a7id Civil Liberty. 
 
 meeting^ that church-goers had dwindled into a small 
 minority, and that Christianity was dying out. 
 
 The daily papers of the 15th and i6th January, 
 1877, were loud in their disapproval of the successes 
 of the socialists and democrats at the elections that 
 had then taken place, and expressed their dread at 
 the future that was before them. 
 
 From the year 1637 to the year 1720 Denmark 
 was a prey to perpetual war, and from that time has 
 been ground down under a gross form of despotism. 
 
 The revolution of 1660 destroyed the despotism 
 of the nobles, but little improvement took place with 
 regard to the great mass of the population. 
 
 In the year 1687 the wretched condition of the 
 Danish peasantry was so alarming that a fifth part of 
 the lands formerly cultivated by them was allowed to 
 remain fallow. 
 
 In the eighteenth century whole villages disappeared 
 in the abyss of misery, caused by the despotic cha- 
 racter of the government. 
 
 Sweden cannot be cited as an example of the peace 
 enjoyed by nations that have accepted the Refor- 
 mation. For the last 300 years she has been a 
 prey to perpetual troubles and revolutions. The an- 
 ' See "Times," March 22nd, 1878. 
 
Catholicis77i and Civil Liberty. 153 
 
 archy that Europe has witnessed in modern Spain 
 is as nothing in comparison to the revolutions in 
 Sweden which disposed of two kings, Sigismund and 
 Gustavus IV., and killed three more — Eric XIV., 
 Charles XII., and Gustavus III. 
 
 The Swedish people carried the love of sedition to 
 the extent of repudiating their own national dynasty, 
 by handing over their country to a soldier of fortune, 
 who rose from the ranks of the great French Revolu- 
 tion. 
 
 The Reformation benefited nobody except the 
 nobility, who practically made royalty subservient to 
 them. 
 
 In the year 1680 the States declared that they re- 
 garded it as an '* absurdity " that the king should be 
 obliged by the statutes to give them a hearing before 
 finally deciding on questions of government. In 1693 
 the sovereign power was declared to be absolute, and 
 Charles XII. caused the Diet to be told that he would 
 send his boots to preside over its sittings. 
 
 After the murder of that amiable freethinker, 
 Swedish liberty, i.e. the dominion of the nobles, was 
 re-established, and a series of revolutions followed in 
 rapid succession, concluding with the murder of Gus- 
 tavus. From that period Sweden became a mass of 
 
154 Catholicism and Civil Liberty. 
 
 intrigue and political corruption. Finland was seized 
 upon by Russia, and the kingdom of Sweden found 
 no political rest save in the arms of a French general 
 who deemed that a crown was well worth an abjura- 
 tion. 
 
 We hear a great deal about the blessings which re- 
 sulted to England from the liberty of the Reformation, 
 but what the Reformation really did was to make 
 England the scene of constantly recurring insurrec- 
 tions and civil wars from the " Pilgrimage of Grace " 
 till the rebellion of 1745, the risings (always justifiable, 
 except it be admitted that Protestant governments 
 are never to be resisted) being always put down with 
 the most ruthless ferocity. 
 
 The Reformation cost the Church of England at 
 least half the population of the United Kingdom, and 
 the country her most treasured possession, the United 
 States of America. As a reformation of manners it 
 proved the most complete failure. It was an outbreak 
 of anomia in the first instance, and cruelty and tyranny 
 in its latter stages. 
 
 Mr. Froude declares that five or six times as much 
 blood was shed by Queen Elizabeth as by her sister 
 Queen Mary, without so much provocation, as there 
 was no insurrection against her as in the case of 
 
Catholicism and Civil Liberty. 155 
 
 Queen Mary, and yet one is held out to the public as 
 ^'Bloody Mary," and the other as "good Queen 
 Bess." 
 
 From Hallam's " Constitutional History " we quote 
 the following passage : — 
 
 " The Church of England, for more than 150 years after the 
 Reformation, continued to be the servile handmaid of monarchy, 
 and the steady enemy of public liberty. The divine right of 
 kings, and the duty of passively obeying them and all their com- 
 mands, were her favourite tenets. She held them firmly through 
 times of oppression, persecution, and licentiousness ; while law 
 was trampled down, while judgment was perverted, while the 
 people were eaten as though they were bread. Once and but 
 once, for a moment and but for a moment, when her own dignity 
 and property were touched, she forgot to practise the submission 
 which she had taught." ' 
 
 Again : — 
 
 " By no artifice of ingenuity can the stigma of persecution, the 
 worst blemish of the English Church, be effaced or patched 
 over. When Elizabeth put Ballard and Babington to death, she 
 was not persecuting, nor should we have accused her govern- 
 ment of persecution for passing any law, however severe, against 
 overt acts of sedition. But to argue that because a man is a 
 Catholic, he must think it right to murder a heretical sovereign, 
 and that because he thinks it right, he will attempt to do it, and 
 then to found on this conclusion a law for punishing him as if he 
 had done it, is plain persecution."^ 
 
 ' Macaulay's " Essays," p. 64. '^ Ibid., p. 59. 
 
156 CatJiolicism and Civil Liberty, 
 
 Mr. Lecky writes as follows : ^ — 
 
 " It would be scarcely possible to conceive a more infamous 
 system of legal tyranny than that which in the eighteenth century 
 crushed every class and almost every interest in Ireland. The 
 Parliament had been deprived of every vestige of independence. 
 The Irish judges might at any time be removed. 
 
 Manufacturing and commercial industry had been deliberately 
 crushed for the benefit of English manufacturers, and the countr}'- 
 was reduced to such a state of poverty that the government was 
 compelled to borrow ^20,000 from a private individual to pay its 
 troops. 
 
 At the same time a gigantic and ever-increasing pension-list 
 was drawn up from the scanty resources of the nation, and was 
 expended partly in corrupting its representatives and partly in 
 rewarding foreigners. The mistresses of George I., the Queen- 
 Dowager of Prussia, sister of George II., and the Sardinian 
 ambassador who negotiated the Peace of Paris, were all on the 
 pension-lists. 
 
 The Catholics, excluded from almost every possibility of 
 eminence, deprived of their natural leaders, and consigned by 
 the legislature to utter ignorance, soon sank into the condition 
 of broken and dispirited helots. 
 
 For the greater part of a century the main object of the legis- 
 lature was to extirpate a religion by the encouragement of some 
 of the worst, and the punishment of some of the best qualities of 
 our nature. 
 
 Its rewards were reserved for the informer, for the hypocrite, 
 for the undutiful son, or for the faithless wife. Its penalties were 
 directed against religious constancy and the honest discharge of 
 ecclesiastical duty. 
 
 ' 3ee " Leaders of Public Opinion in Ireland," by Lecky, 
 pp. 125, 127. Longmans and Green, 1871. 
 
Catholicism and Civil Liberty. 157 
 
 It is impossible for any Irish Protestant whose mind is not 
 wholly perverted by religious bigotry, to look back without 
 shame and indignation to the penal code. The annals of perse- 
 cution contain many more sanguinary pages. They contain no 
 instance of a series of laws more deliberately and ingeniously 
 framed to debase their victims, to bribe them in every stage of 
 their life to abandon their convictions, and to sow dissension 
 and distrust within the family circle. 
 
 That the Irish Parliament in the last years of William, and in 
 the reigns of his two successors, was one of the most persecut- 
 ing legislative assemblies that ever sat, cannot reasonably be 
 questioned. 
 
 The code of laws inaugurated in the reign of William III. is 
 described by Burke as a code well digested and well disposed in 
 all its parts, a machine of wise and elaborate contrivance, and 
 as well fitted for the oppression, impoverishment, and degrada- 
 tion of a people, and the debasement in them of human nature 
 itself, as ever proceeded from the perverted ingenuity of man. 
 
 It was framed by a small minority of the nation for the oppres- 
 sion of the majority, who remained faithful to the religion of their 
 fathers. It was framed by men who boasted that their creed 
 rested upon private judgment, and whose descendants are never 
 weary of declaiming upon the intolerance of Popery, and was in 
 all its parts so strictly a code of religious persecution that any 
 Catholic might be exempted from its operation by simply for- 
 saking his religion." 
 
 From Hallam's "Constitutional History" (third 
 edition, vol. i. p. 130) we quote the following pas- 
 sage : — 
 
 " Tolerance in religion, it is well known, so unanimously ad- 
 mitted at least verbally in the present century, was seldom con- 
 
158 Catholicism a7id Civil Liberty, 
 
 sidered practicable, much less a matter of right, during the 
 period of the Reformation." 
 
 And again : — 
 
 " It appears that at the end of the seventeenth century the 
 Irish or Anglo-Irish Catholics could hardly possess above one- 
 sixth or one-seventh of the kingdom. They were still formidable 
 from their numbers and their sufferings, and the victorious party 
 saw no security but in a system of oppression, contained in a 
 series of laws during the reigns of William and Anne, which have 
 scarce a parallel in European history. 
 
 No Papist was allowed to keep a school, or teach in any 
 private houses, except the children of the family, and no Papist 
 could be a guardian to any child," &c. &c. &c. 
 
 "To have exterminated the Catholics by the sword, or expelled 
 them like the Moriscoes of Spain, would have been little more 
 repugnant to justice and humanity, but incomparably more 
 politic." ' 
 
 From Prendergast's " Cromwellian Settlement " 
 (p. 16) we quote the following : — 
 
 " If a Protestant married an Irishwoman, and did not conform 
 to the English religion within one year of the marriage, he sank 
 to the helot-like condition of his wife's people, and was deprived 
 of all rights, he became a co?istriictive Papist, and was regarded 
 as worse than a born one." 
 
 Grattan, in one of his celebrated speeches, said : — 
 
 " Civil and religious liberty depends upon political power ; 
 the community that has no share directly or indirectly in political 
 power has no security for its poHtical liberty." 
 
 * Hallam's " Constitutional History," vol. iii. p. 532. 
 
Catholicism and Civil Liberty, 159 
 
 Mr. Freeman, In his work entitled " Growth of the 
 English Constitution," ' writes as follows : — 
 
 " The old paths have in England ever been the paths of pro- 
 gress ; the ancient custom has ever been to shrink from mere 
 change for the sake of change, but fearlessly to change whenever 
 change was needed. And many of the best changes of later 
 times, many of the most wholesome improvements in our law 
 and constitution, have been only the casting aside of innovations 
 which crept in in modern and evil times. They have been the 
 calling up again, in an altered garb, of principles as old as the 
 days when we get our first sight of our forefathers in the German 
 forests. 
 
 Changed as it is in all outward forms and circumstances, the 
 England in which we live has, in its true life and spirit, far more 
 in common with the England of the earliest times than it has 
 with the England of days far nearer to our own. In many a 
 wholesome act of modern legislation we have gone back, wit- 
 tingly or unwittingly, to the earliest principle of our race. We 
 have advanced by falling back on a more ancient state of things ; 
 we have reformed by calling to life again the institutions of 
 earlier and ruder times, by setting ourselves free from the slavish 
 subtleties of Norman lawyers, by casting aside as an accursed 
 thing the innovations of Tudor tyranny and Stuart usurpa- 
 tion." 
 
 Again : — 
 
 "Our English constitution was never made in the sense in 
 which the constitutions of many other countries have been made. 
 There never was any moment when Englishmen drew out their 
 political system in the shape of a formal document, whether as 
 
 * See " Growth of the English Constitution," by Freeman, 
 pp. 20, 21. Macmillan, 1872. 
 
i6o Catholicism and Civil Liberty. 
 
 the carrying out of any abstract political theories, or as the 
 imitation of the past or present system of any other nation. 
 
 Till the Charter was wrung from King John, men called for the 
 laws of good King Edward. We have made changes from time 
 to time, but they have been changes at once conservative and 
 progressive. They have been the application of ancient princi- 
 ples to new circumstances ; they have been the careful repairs of 
 an ancient building, not the pulling down of an old building, and 
 the rearing up of a new. 
 
 Our national assembly has changed its name and its constitu- 
 tion, but its corporate identity has lived on unbroken. In France, 
 on the other hand, institutions have been the work of abstract 
 theory ; they have been the creations for good or for evil of the 
 minds of individual men." (Pp. 55, 64.) 
 
 And again : — 
 
 "There is, indeed, a wide difference between the political 
 condition of England under Edward I. and the political condi- 
 tion of England in our own day, but the difference lies far more 
 in the practical working of the constitution than in its outward 
 form. 
 
 The changes have been many, but a large portion of those 
 changes have not been formal enactments, but those silent 
 changes whose gradual working has wrought out for us a con- 
 ventional constitution existing alongside of our written law. 
 
 Speaking generally, and allowing for the important class of 
 conventional understandings which have never been clothed 
 with the form of written enactments, the main elements of the 
 English constitution remain now as they were fixed then." (Pp. 
 86, 87.) 
 
 And again : — 
 "At last came the sixteenth century, the time of trial for many 
 
Catholicism and Civil Liberty. i6i 
 
 parliamentary institutions in many countries of Europe. Not a 
 few assemblies which had once been as free as our own Parlia- 
 ment were, during that age, swept away or reduced to empty 
 ormalities. 
 
 Then it was that Charles V. and Philip II. overthrew the free 
 constitutions of Castile and Aragon ; then it was that the States- 
 General of France met for the last time but one before their last 
 meeting of all, on the eve of the great Revolution. 
 
 In England parliamentary institutions were not swept away, 
 nor did Parliament sink into an empty form ; but for a while our 
 parHaments, like all our other institutions, became perverted into 
 instruments of tyranny." 
 
 Every act which has restrained the arbitrary prerogative of the 
 Crown, every act which has secured or increased either the 
 powers of Parliament or the liberty of the subject, has been a 
 return, sometimes to the letter, at all times to the spirit of our 
 earliest law." (Pp. 98, 137.) 
 
 These examples may suffice for Protestant nations. 
 From the sixteenth century the interior government of 
 all the Catholic States has been bad, but on the whole 
 the masses of the people have remained faithful to 
 the order, discipline, and established authority of the 
 Church. Preserved for 200 years from the dangers 
 of the Reformation, they were at length carried away 
 by the great revolutionary movement of 1789, which 
 was itself but the logical development of Protestantism. 
 
 Poland forms an exception, but we must not forget 
 that she was coveted by two powerful potentates in 
 the East and West, and that the exclamation of one 
 
 M 
 
1 62 Catholicism and Civil Liberty. 
 
 of her magnates, " Malo pericidosain libertatem quam 
 otiosiim servitiuml^ was a cry of self-defence against 
 her powerful enemies, who at last succeeded in their 
 guilty and oft-renewed attempts. In the present 
 century there is. but one Protestant country that has 
 resisted all the revolutionary aspirations of 1789^ 
 and that country is England, whose inhabitants have 
 remained Christian, and w^hose government alone 
 since the Caesarism of the Renaissance has preserved 
 the forms of the ancient Catholic governments of the 
 Middle Ages. 
 
 Unquestionably she merits much praise, and Catho- 
 lics owe her a debt of gratitude on this matter; for 
 them England has remained a model and a consola- 
 tion : a model, because she is the representative of 
 ancient historical and Catholic institutions ; a conso- 
 lation, because they can point to her as a specimen of 
 what all European countries would have been but for 
 the excesses of the Renaissance, the bigotry of the sec- 
 tarians in the sixteenth century, the insolence of the 
 governments of Louis XIV., the Regency, and Louis 
 XV., the corruption of the encyclopaedists, the re- 
 volutionary theories of the eighteenth century, and 
 the liberal ideas of the nineteenth century — none of 
 which arose from Catholicism. 
 
CatJiolicism and Civil Liberty. 163 
 
 Let us examine the present condition of South 
 America, Spain, and France, for Italy (although a 
 Catholic nation) is considered by our opponents to 
 have entered their new path of salvation. 
 
 In South America many States that had been 
 governed by European Powers during the eighteenth 
 century found themselves suddenly cut adrift from 
 them, and for the space of forty years had to struggle 
 in the throes of anarchy. 
 
 These States were Mexico, Venezuela, and the Ar- 
 gentine Republic, all of which were governed by re- 
 volutionists or men who had adopted the principles 
 of 1789. 
 
 We do not make special reference to Spain, because 
 what we say of France is equally applicable to the 
 country of the Cid. Only an unparalleled boldness 
 or a profound contempt for the public can enable 
 anyone to lay down the theory that the frequent 
 revolutions in France are attributable to the Catholic 
 Church. 
 
 The French as a body have doubtless remained 
 steadfast in the faith of St. Remi, but we cannot 
 pretend to find in this fact a solution to the question. 
 
 Freedom of worship is one thing, and liberty of 
 conscience is another, but modern liberalism confuses 
 
164 Catholicism and Civil Liberty. 
 
 them. Catholics admit of the former as a necessity of 
 modern society. 
 
 There is no CathoHc country in Europe where non- 
 Catholic forms of worship have not been tolerated ; 
 and in countries where non-Catholics have formed an 
 important part of the population, Catholic govern- 
 ments have never shrunk from granting toleration of 
 worship. Cardinal Richelieu induced his master to 
 sign the Edict of Nantes long before any Protestant 
 State had granted any kind of toleration to Catholics. 
 When Englishmen inveigh against Louis XIV.'s un- 
 fortunate revocation of that Edict, they seem to forget 
 that at that very time the laws of England were in- 
 flicting the penalty of death upon any Catholic priest 
 who ventured to offer the sacrifice of the Mass within 
 that realm. The gratitude of Christendom has rati- 
 fied the praise of the heroic deeds of Frenchmen, deeds 
 which the historians of the Middle Ages had lauded 
 in the proverb gesta Dei per Francos, comprehending 
 in this last word, not only the actual French people, 
 but the Franks of ancient Lorraine and the tribes 
 settled along the borders of the right bank of the Rhine 
 as far as Friesland. 
 
 It must not be forgotten that the country of St. 
 Vincent de Paul has also given birth to Voltaire, and 
 
CatJiolicism and Civil Liberty, 165 
 
 that the Little Sisters of the Poor are less honoured 
 by literary men than Madame Georges Sand. Above 
 all, we must carefully distinguish the extraordinary 
 pressure to which official France has been subjected 
 since the period of the Renaissance. 
 
 Without going as far back as Philippe-le-Bel, who 
 professed the same doctrines as Herr Falck, and as 
 John of Meung, the author of the second part of the 
 '* Roman de la Rose," it may be fairly asserted that 
 since the period of the Reformation, France has never 
 possessed a government strictly faithful to the doctrines 
 of ecclesiastical civil law as taught by the Universal 
 Church. 
 
 In order not to complicate what is simple in itself, 
 let us ascertain what government France has possessed 
 in the present century that could be designated as 
 clerical. The governments of the restoration under 
 Louis XVI 1 1, and Charles X., though on the whole 
 favourable to Catholicism, thought more of their own 
 interests than of the glorification of the Church. 
 
 Nevertheless, previous to Marshal MacMahon they 
 may be considered as the best that France has recently 
 possessed, and many of the misfortunes of that country 
 might have been avoided, and her monarchical con- 
 stitution perfected and developed, if the basis of the 
 
1 66 Catholicism a7id Civil Liberty. 
 
 ancient traditions and moral interests of the country 
 had been consulted. From the time of Louis XVI. 
 up to the present day, every government in France 
 has been more or less hostile or indifferent to Catholic 
 interests. 
 
 The civil constitution of the clergy, the organic articles 
 of the Concordat, the imprisonment of Pope Pius VL, 
 the capture of Pius VII., the evils that afflicted the 
 pontificate of Pius IX., have all been directly or in- 
 directly the work of the French authorities ; the July 
 government of Louis Philippe was liberal, that of 
 Napoleon III. was the sponsor of Cavour and the ac- 
 complice of Bismarck, and the two Republics of 1848 
 and 1870 led to the assassination of two archbishops 
 (Mgr. Affre and Mgr. Darboy), and numbers of the 
 clergy. 
 
 To what political section of Frenchmen must we 
 attribute the execution of Louis XVI., the proscription 
 of the clergy who refused to sign the oath of alle- 
 giance to the convention, the institution of the National 
 Guard, the citation of the Comte de Montalembert and 
 Pere Lacordaire before the court of peers, and the 
 massacre of the hostages } 
 
 M. de Tocqueville has summed up the events that 
 took place towards the close of the eighteenth cen- 
 
Catholicism and Civil Liberty. 167 
 
 tury in the following sentence : " We were making 
 steady progress when the Revolution came upon us." 
 
 Notwithstanding the recent terrible experiences of 
 our century, France of the present day may be con- 
 sidered as advancing steadily, and this to such an ex- 
 tent that her enemies cannot for a moment ignore 
 her existence. 
 
 French civilization is so powerful that even her con- 
 querors feel the hand of her irresistible influence, ac- 
 cording to the words of Horace, Gi^cecia capta feriim 
 victoreni cepit. 
 
 The propagation of Protestant ideas was in a great 
 measure due to official France, and the question might 
 be asked, firstly, what would have become of Protes- 
 tantism and Mahometanism if the government of 
 France, instead of becoming their accomplice and 
 abettor at critical periods of their history, had joined 
 religiously with the Emperor of Germany to oppose 
 them ? and, secondly, w^hat would have been the 
 fate of the Electorate of Brandenbourg without the 
 aid of France at the most critical period of its exis- 
 tence ? 
 
 According to the theories of the deductive school 
 those nations who are corrupted by the Catholic 
 Church are condemned to a condition of political 
 
1 68 Catholicism and Civil Liberty. 
 
 absolutism, moral slavery, and incurable poverty ; 
 although Italy and Belgium are allowed to be more 
 prosperous than France or Spain, and more or less ex- 
 ceptions to the rule. 
 
 Many persons, however, question the fact that liberty 
 is definitely established in those two countries, and in 
 any case it is necessary for us to ascertain in what 
 sense the word " liberty " is used. 
 
 An article in " // Diritto " called Italia nera par- 
 tially discloses it to us. 
 
 In this article the following sentence occurs : " I 
 popoli di religione papale o sono gia morti o vanna 
 morendi." ** Those nations who profess the papal re- 
 ligion are either dead or dying." 
 
 The article proceeds to prophesy that all will be 
 smooth in Italy as long as the Catholics do not avail 
 themselves of the political liberty common to all, but 
 that the day on which these wretched people begin to 
 profit by the principles of the constitution, the incom- 
 patibility that exists between modern civilization and 
 the ideas of the court of Rome will be apparent. 
 
 The uninitiated reader may well ask himself what 
 this enlightened writer wishes to prove t 
 
 Whilst declaring that those nations that practise 
 the religion of the Pope are dead or dying, he pro- 
 
Catholicism and Civil Liberty. 169 
 
 ceeds to state that a large number of these persons 
 exist in Italy, and may probably become a power in 
 the land. 
 
 That v/hich may happen at some future day in the 
 Italian peninsula is precisely what has happened in 
 Belgium since the year 1840. 
 
 The public in general do not imagine that the 
 Belgian Catholics are either dead or dying ; on the 
 contrary, there is much vitality and energy amongst 
 them, they make a serious and practical use of the 
 representative system, and firmly stand their ground 
 against the shocks to which the modern system of 
 liberty subjects them ; and they are certainly no poorer 
 in mind or material possessions than the liberals or 
 Protestants, either in the past or present. 
 
 M. de Laveleye in the year 1875 wrote as follows: — 
 
 " One of the authors of the Belgian constitution, perhaps the 
 most distinguished amongst them, said to me lately, with heart- 
 felt sorrow, * We believed that all that was necessary to found 
 liberty was to proclaim it by separating Church and State. I 
 begin to think that we deceived ourselves. The Church, relying 
 on the country districts, seeks to impose her absolute power. 
 The great cities, which have given in their adhesion to modern 
 ideas, will not let themselves be enslaved without attempting re- 
 sistance. We are tending Hke France towards civil war ; we are 
 already in a revolutionary position. The future appears big with 
 troubles.' The elections of 1874 have begun to bring the danger 
 
170 Catholicism and Civil Libei^ty. , 
 
 to light. The elections for the Chambers have strengthened the 
 clerical party, while those for the Communes have given power 
 to the liberals in all the large towns. 
 
 Antagonism between the towns and the provinces, which is one 
 of the causes of civil war in France, begins already to show itself 
 in Belgium. As long as the government remains in the hands 
 of prudent men, who are more disposed to serve their country 
 than to obey the bishops, grave disorders need not be appre- 
 hended. But if the fanatics who openly accept the ' Syllabus ' 
 as their political programme, should attain to power, terrible 
 shocks would follow." 
 
 Quinet, in his " History of the Revolution," says 
 there are only two methods of solving religious ques- 
 tions, *' one by the use of restraint, the other by perfect 
 liberty," and then proceeds to demonstrate that the 
 latter is practically useless, and restraint is necessary. 
 
 "If Luther and Calvin," he continues, "had been 
 content with the mere establishment of liberty of 
 worship without enforcing their dogmas, there would 
 never have been the shadow of a religious revolution 
 in the sixteenth century." 
 
 The same writer, in a letter addressed to Eugene 
 Sue upon the religious and moral condition of Europe, 
 openly declared that nothing but force had been 
 successful for the destruction of an ancient belief. 
 
 We find in an article in the ^' Reznie de Belgiqiie'' 
 (Oct. 15th 1875), by M. Pergameni, a Belgian writer of 
 
Catholicism and Civil Liberty. 171 
 
 the liberal school, under the title of " The Basis of 
 Political Liberty," an apology for these antichristian 
 doctrines, which though coarse in expression is per- 
 fectly clear and distinct. 
 
 The author, following the steps of M. Ouinet, Eugene 
 Sue, and an eccentric Englishman named Stephen, 
 controverts the opinions of the liberal doctrinaires of 
 the Manchester school, the unionists, and the Belgian 
 constitution. 
 
 He treats political liberty as inefficacious, super- 
 annuated, and a thing of the past. 
 
 He considers it an imposition that liberty should be 
 allowed to opponents. 
 
 *' Liberty," he says, with the calmest assurance, " is 
 a practical idea, a result of race, climate, and civiliza- 
 tion." 
 
 The author deserves to be ranked amongst the 
 number of unwilling apologists, for he goes on to say : — 
 
 " If men were governed here below by an infallible and 
 superior law, if in some part of the heavens the Book of Truth 
 was disclosed to us ; if we could read without difficulty that 
 which is consonant with, and that which is contrary to the ideal 
 of society, the problem of truth would be quickly and easily 
 solved. 
 
 Everything in conformity with this ideal would be lawful and 
 permissible ; everything opposed to it would be forbidden. 
 
172 Catholicisui and Civil Liberty. 
 
 But, alas ! such is not the case. Neglected children as we are, 
 we have above us no infallible master to take us by the hand, 
 and tell us what is truth. 
 
 Truth is, in fact, but our own creation ; social necessities are 
 what we define them to be. 
 
 Might alone creates, preserves, and fixes social necessities and 
 rules of right, for right without might is only an expression. 
 
 In spite of what anyone may say to the contrary, not only is 
 might superior to right, which does not signify much ; but might 
 actually is right." 
 
 A little further on M. Pergameni repeats the pro- 
 position as laid down by Stephen : — 
 
 II 
 
 The question as to liberty being desirable or not, is as illogi- 
 cal as the question whether fire is good or bad." 
 
 There is doubtless a certain amount of truth in this 
 premise, and no Catholics dispute it, but from the 
 mouth or pen of one who repudiates all objective 
 authority in this world, such a declaration of principle 
 is suicidal. 
 
 M. Pergameni continues in the following strain : — 
 
 " Let us not lose time in endeavouring to convince our adver- 
 saries ; the experience of centuries can alone decide who pos- 
 sesses truth, and which of us approaches the nearest to the 
 social ideal. 
 
 We believe we are right, which is sufficient for us ; and 
 thenceforth our duty is to try and spread those ideas which we 
 consider just, without troubling ourselves about liberty. 
 
 Furthermore, this tendency to put aside liberty as an auxiliary 
 in the social strife becomes every day more manifest, in propor- 
 
Catholicism and Civil Liberty. 173 
 
 tion as conservative opinion transforms itself, and gathers round 
 the Catholic Church the oldest and most sohd religious struc- 
 ture that men have raised. 
 
 Germany, Switzerland, and Italy have given us an example ; 
 let us follow in their steps. 
 
 In countries Hke England and the United States these ques- 
 tions are far more simple, and the liberty of association and 
 worship is almost without limit. 
 
 But premonitory symptoms of agitation are already beginning 
 to trouble this surface, apparently so calm ; and the moment is 
 rapidly approaching when these countries will find themselves 
 face to face with the formidable problem of religious liberty. 
 
 They will act, we doubt not, with all the practical good sense 
 of the Anglo-Saxon race, and will not lose their time in discus- 
 sing whether certain measures of self-defence, such as the sup- 
 pression of religious orders, is a blow to the liberty of the subject. 
 Necessity makes the law and salus popiili siiprema lex are old 
 axioms that mankind will never repudiate. 
 
 In Belgium, as in France, the situation is much more critical. 
 We are in the midst of the fray ; and Ultramontanism labours 
 with alarming zeal in its work of absorption. 
 
 What should be our Hne of action? It is not sufficient to look 
 on, and sing the praises of liberty, but we must rise up manfully, 
 and seek to muzzle the Roman wolf. 
 
 Will it suffice, as many people imagine, to deprive the Church 
 of her privileges, and to put hterally into execution the formula 
 of ' a free Church in a free State ? ' 
 
 We have a firm conviction that such a course would prove 
 fatal, and be the cause of our destruction. 
 
 If the Belgian liberals wish to save their country and their 
 idea, they will be obliged to resort to more energetic measures : 
 they will have to work without ceasing for the suppression of 
 convents and religious orders ; they will have to wrest education 
 
174 Catholicism and Civil Liberty, 
 
 from the hands of the clergy, and forcibly stop the extraordinary 
 growth of miracles and pilgrimages, which are objects of shame 
 and scandal to the country. 
 
 What are these measures to be ? 
 
 There is no question as to the making of martyrs. The days 
 are passed in which burning and torture can be inflicted for 
 political opinions ; the customs of society have altered, and 
 people of this nineteenth century no longer possess the iron 
 hearts of their forefathers ; but although repression may have 
 lost its aspect of ferocity, it nevertheless exists, for it is the 
 sanction of right. 
 
 Fines, banishments, and imprisonments are perfectly lawful 
 and justifiable, and there is no reason why such methods should 
 not be employed. 
 
 Liberty, tolerance, free discussion, and mild ridicule will not 
 gain for us, who are freethinkers and disciples of Voltaire, an 
 iota in this struggle. On the contrary, the more we talk of 
 liberty, and the more we amuse ourselves by turning miracles 
 into ridicule, the more will superstition spread amongst the 
 people. A fortress of granite, like the clerical system, cannot be 
 overthrown by such mild measures. 
 
 If we wish to accomplish a serious work, we must ignore the 
 doctrines of the constitution of 1830, and set aside our first bright 
 dreams of liberty. 
 
 No one w^ould deny that liberty may be sometimes excellent, 
 but social life is a far greater treasure ; and in order to preserve 
 this latter, we must know how to make use of force. 
 
 Each act of our legislation is an example of this, for each en- 
 croaches upon the domain of liberty ; and if we still further 
 restrict this domain whenever it fetters our social ideal, we shall 
 be acting logically, as men ought to act. 
 
 The principles by which we ought to be guided in this 
 struggle are those of lawful self-defence and social preservation ; 
 
Catholicism and Civil Libe7'ty. 175 
 
 they are also those of human solidarity, a fact too much forgotten 
 by the liberals of all countries. 
 
 It is high time that the men of progress should earnestly take 
 up the question of the poorer classes, the number of which in- 
 creases every day in so threatening a manner. 
 
 In this matter the clericals long ago took the wind out of our 
 sails, and became the advisers, the rulers, and the comforters of 
 the people. 
 
 Let us do as they have done — let us go to the disinherited, 
 protect them against the machinations of the Church, if neces- 
 sary even at the cost of liberty of association. 
 
 Let us bear in mind that the great law of all human societies 
 is the struggle of opposite powers, that a political party can only 
 retain its existence by active warfare ; that it cannot afford to fall 
 into a sleepy indifference, or to leave the ground to its adversa- 
 ries ; and that the true motto of every man who believes in an 
 idea, is that of one of our champions of liberalism, De Marnix 
 de Sainte Aldegonde, ' Rest is elsewhere.' " 
 
 Under this spirited passage of M. Pergameni there 
 exists undoubtedly a certain sincerity of conviction ; 
 he says nothing stronger than many men of his school 
 have done, though he may have expressed his opinions 
 with greater clearness, but M. de Laveleye in the 
 name of the committee of the "• Revue de Belgique^' 
 thought it necessary to write the following dis- 
 claimer : — N 
 
 " The system defended by M. Pergameni is accepted by none 
 of the members of the committee. It has numerous partisans in 
 England, Italy, France, and Germany (especially the latter), and 
 
1/6 Catlwlicisin ajtd Civil Liberty. 
 
 their number will probably increase in proportion as the exces- 
 sive pretensions of the clergy provoke an increased opposition." 
 
 Ouinet, in a letter to Eugene Sue, acknowledges that 
 it was difficult to formulate his doctrine, and that he 
 therefore found it desirable to put it forward in a 
 diluted manner. We conclude M. de Laveleye is of a 
 similar opinion. 
 
 That the sentiments of M. Pergameni are not actually 
 endorsed by all the members of the modern Continental 
 school of liberalism is evident, for a large number take 
 their stand from the historical point of view of our doc- 
 trinary and parliamentary liberals, and protest against 
 them ; but as a matter, nevertheless, of fact they are 
 put into practice in Prussia and in Switzerland, two 
 countries that profess to take the lead in modern civi- 
 lization. 
 
 Prince Bismarck, who puts them in practice, is hailed 
 as one of the greatest men of the day; and the ablest 
 jurists, the most renowned men of letters, and those 
 philosophers that Germany still possesses, bow down 
 before him. 
 
 He wished to rebuke the overreaching of the Church, 
 and he has ended by imprisoning or driving into exile 
 almost all the Bishops in Prussia. 
 
 He was shocked at the interference of the Church 
 
Catholicism and Civil Liberty, 177 
 
 with human liberty, an interference suggested by the 
 supernatural law, and he accordingly invented State 
 laws which should put the "supernatural" beneath the 
 feet of his soldiers and lawyers. 
 
 Under the pretext of acting on the defensive, a form 
 of despotic tyranny was introduced. Such conduct 
 never can stop on the defensive, it invariably pro- 
 ceeds to the aggressive, and finally develops into 
 despotism. 
 
 Some of the modern school of liberals are more 
 technical but less convincing ; they seek to redress 
 mistakes upon the notions of liberty, and put forward 
 paternally philosophical admonitions. 
 
 We will not allow ourselves to be carried away by 
 a digression which would inevitably ensue if we were 
 to begin criticizing such theories. Doctrines of civil 
 and political liberty, deduced exclusively from the 
 notion of moral liberty, cannot be accepted without 
 philosophical reserve, and would give rise to many 
 rational objections. It is possible to entertain with 
 regard to moral liberty the most approved philo- 
 sophical doctrine without admitting liberty of worship 
 as an absolute principle, and yet be a perfectly honest 
 man ; and it is possible in the same way to define 
 liberty of worship doctrinally as a pestilence, and yet 
 
 N 
 
178 Catholicism and Civil Liberty. 
 
 to respect with sincerity in its civil aspect a legislation 
 which tolerates every form of w^orship. 
 
 Such is the argument and hypothesis of Catholics. 
 
 Many philosophers, we are aware, refuse to admit 
 " absolute liberty of worship," and declare that it is 
 only sophists who venture to maintain the possibility 
 of such a thing as " absolute liberty." 
 
 "Liberty," they say, "cannot exist absolutely for 
 mankind, since the liberty of each member of society 
 is limited by the liberty of all the others. 
 
 Liberty has its limits, but that does not hinder it 
 from being a thing desirable to acquire. 
 
 It is a thing that is good, because it is a thing that 
 is right." 
 
 This argument is fundamentally fallacious : it con- 
 founds moral and political liberty and what is positive 
 with what is relative, and entirely subverts the notion 
 of good. Liberty is not a good thing because it is 
 right; on the contrary, it can only become a right for 
 the realization of good. 
 
 Who is to define the limits of civil liberty, when dif- 
 ferent writers set up different claims to do so, each in 
 a different manner t 
 
 In what way can the encyclicals Mirari vos and 
 Quanta ctira, be called even " philosophically " inferior 
 
Catholicism and Civil Liberty. 179 
 
 to the uncertain and subjective theories of the modern 
 liberals ? 
 
 In conclusion, Catholic nations are either dead or 
 dying, but if perchance they have not yet been buried 
 and become a thing of the past, governments must be 
 cautious as to granting them any political liberties, 
 which are only lawful for Protestants and hberals ; and 
 experience proves, and will prove every day more con- 
 clusively, that free thought cannot hold ground against 
 Catholicism in the domain of absolute and complete 
 liberty. 
 
 For this reason people are beginning to seek, con- 
 trary to the whole history of the past and the existing 
 facts of the present, to prove that Catholics are re- 
 ligiously corrupt in soul, slaves in politics, and con- 
 demned by the laws of economy to a state of poverty. 
 
 When it is shown, as in Belgium, that such an argu- 
 ment is radically false and utterly untenable, they 
 cry out that Catholics should be excluded from par- 
 ticipating in the benefits of civil liberty and common 
 law. 
 
 On the one hand, therefore, the assertion is made 
 that Catholics are incapable of life ; on the other, that 
 they should be condemned to death because they have 
 too much life. 
 
i8o Catholicisin and Civil Liberty. 
 
 If civil liberties ought not to be granted to Catholics 
 as well as to other persons, what is the system pro- 
 posed to be applied to them ? * 
 
 Persecution and tyranny, to be exercised according 
 as the various governments of the day shall think 
 advisable. 
 
 To such a pitch of "civilization and progress " have 
 we arrived in the latter half of the nineteenth century. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 CATHOLIC COUNTRIES AND EDUCATION. 
 
 Instruction in itself not a source of material prosperity — False 
 conclusions as to the condition of public teaching in a country 
 in regard to political power — Primary teaching in Belgium — 
 In Prussia — The organization of primary instruction and the 
 Reformation. 
 
 FTER an endeavour to prove that the Re- 
 formation is more favourable than Catho- 
 licism to the development of nations, M. 
 deLaveleye sets himself the task of finding 
 out the causes of this imaginary fact. The first cause 
 is supposed to be instruction, which in his opinion is 
 more complete in Protestant than Catholic countries; 
 by instruction he means the small amount of know- 
 ledge, both scientific and literary, that can be carried 
 away from the elementary school. 
 
1 82 Catholic Countries and Education. 
 
 Saxony, Denmark, and Sweden are said to occupy 
 the first rank among nations, with populations almost 
 entirely free from uneducated men, whilst France, 
 Belgium, Spain, and Portugal stagnate in invincible 
 ignorance. 
 
 Invincible ignorance, for though Catholic States 
 may decree compulsory education, as Italy has done 
 recently, or spend large sums for this purpose, like 
 Belgium, they do not succeed in uprooting ignorance. 
 
 In England, where primary education is a little more 
 complete than in Portugal, the apparent regularity of 
 this syllogism is perverted, probably because the 
 Anglican Church is amongst the Reformed Churches 
 that which is most akin to the Church of Rome. 
 
 Holland might have been mentioned by the side of 
 Great Britain. 
 
 In Switzerland we are told that the Latin but Pro- 
 testant cantons of Neufchatel, of Vaud, and of Geneva, 
 are under this head on a par with the Teutonic cantons 
 of Zurich and Berne, and superior to those of Ticino, 
 Valais, and Lucerne. 
 
 The general cause of this extraordinary contrast is 
 contained in the saying of Luther, " instruct the 
 children." Protestants must all know how to read, 
 since the reformed creed reposes upon a book, the 
 
Catholic Count 7des and Education. 183 
 
 Bible, whilst with Catholics reading is the path that 
 leads to heresy — in a word, the organization of primary 
 instruction dates from the era of the Reformation. 
 
 Instruction being very favourable to the practice of 
 political liberty, and to the production of riches, and 
 Protestantism favouring as it does the diffusion of in- 
 struction, a manifest superiority is to be seen in Pro- 
 testant States. 
 
 This chain of reasoning is contrary not only to 
 reality, but even to the economical thesis of the writer, 
 '' Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word 
 that proceedeth forth from the mouth of God." 
 
 Everyone is aware that riches, in the ordinary ac- 
 ceptation of the term, are not the general portion of the 
 learned and well informed. 
 
 Stidtitiani patiuntur opes. 
 
 It is not riches, nor even science, but justice that 
 •educates nations. 
 
 Jiistitia elevat gentes. 
 
 In the most refined period of the republic at Athens, 
 none of the electors contemporary with Aristophanes 
 were able to read or write. 
 
 Primary education did not make the fortune of either 
 Tyre or Carthage. 
 
 When ancient Rome governed the earth with her 
 
184 Catholic Countries and Education, 
 
 political dictatorship, the fellow-countrymen of Ovid, 
 of Horace, and of Virgil, were not all normalists. In 
 the present day England is recognized as one of the 
 first political societies of the modern world, and yet she 
 is one of the lowest in the scale of primary instruction. 
 Russia, the actual umpire of European peace, is in this 
 matter the most behindhand of all. 
 
 The consul who reduced the country of Plato and 
 Pindar into a Roman province was an uneducated 
 boor. Many unlettered men could be numbered 
 amongst those who carried the banner of the im- 
 mortal principles of '89 through Europe. 
 
 The schoolmaster may have triumphed at Sedan, 
 but who triumphed at Jena ? Compulsory instruction 
 existed in Prussia long before 1789, and it did not 
 prevent that country from undergoing political humilia- 
 tion from the retreat of Champagne, under the Prince 
 of Coburg, until the year 181 3. 
 
 From the reports' of school statistics, the country 
 which may be considered as most advanced with re- 
 gard to elementary education is Sweden, whose civi- 
 lized districts are more or less on a par with the 
 provinces of Limburg, Luxembourg, and Namur, in 
 Belgium. 
 
 In spite of the secular Schulzwang of Prussia, the 
 
Catholic Countries and Education. 185 
 
 monarchy of Frederic II. is not so advanced as the 
 province of Arlon in Belgium. 
 
 The perfection of primary education is to be found 
 in Luxembourg ; the governor of that province in the 
 opening session of the provincial council of the year 
 1872 spoke as follows : — 
 
 " Luxembourg counts at the present time 507 elementary 
 schools — that is to say, one school to every 400 inhabitants ; and 
 such a result has not been attained in any other country in 
 Europe. 
 
 It is the result of the united efforts of individuals, of districts, 
 of provinces, and of the central power .... a wise and fruitful 
 association. 
 
 The frequent and persevering attempts of Luxembourg to found 
 schools is an interesting and touching history. 
 
 It was in itself a colossal undertaking, and local difficulties 
 still further complicated it. The province has an exceptional 
 territorial area ; it possesses no large centres, and its population 
 is scattered in eight or nine hundred groups of villages. Most of 
 the parishes are poor. 
 
 For the last fifty years the number of pupils in the elementary 
 schools has been relatively large, and is perpetually on the 
 increase. 
 
 In the year 1817 it was 10 per cent, of the population, and it 
 now exceeds 1 5 per cent. 
 
 Last year the census proved that there were 31,580 children 
 of an age to go to school, and the number of scholars actually 
 attending the elementary schools was 31,239; so that only 341 
 children were missing, which produces i per cent. — a result that 
 has never been attained in any country in Europe, under any 
 educational system. 
 
1 86 Catholic Cotmtries and Education, 
 
 The entire population pass through the schools. For every 
 357 inhabitants there is one schoolmaster, whilst the proportion 
 in the whole country is one to every 140 inhabitants. 
 
 In Brabant it is one to 507, and in the province of Liege 
 one to 526. 
 
 We find the following in a parliamentary document recently 
 published, and in which the condition of elementary education 
 in the different parts of the world is thoroughly set forth and 
 appreciated : ' The most praiseworthy part of the system in 
 Switzerland, and that which best explains its success and its 
 celebrity, lies undoubtedly in the great number of schools it pos- 
 sesses.' 
 
 In Switzerland there are not so many schoolmasters in pro- 
 portion as in Luxembourg. Such superiority is not then merely 
 local, and relative to the other Belgian provinces, it places 
 Luxembourg above the countries the most favoured under this 
 head. 
 
 Here, then, we have a picture of the organization of popular 
 instruction produced by the happy dispositions of the population, 
 of the law, and of time. 
 
 However the organization of the school is here a collection of 
 means more or less well adapted, and the results of which are 
 uncertain, according to times and places ; the final end, the great 
 duty, is the diffusion of instruction. 
 
 In what measure does this benefit extend to the population of 
 Luxembourg? On this point, I often quote with curiosity the 
 statistics, and all the elements of proofs that they can furnish. 
 
 In 7nore than half of our districts ignorance is completely 
 banished from the rising generation^ as well amongst the women 
 as anio7igst the fnen. In the remaining half it is, with the excep- 
 tion of some very backward localities, almost a thing of the past. 
 
 We may then truthfully assert that pri??iary instruction in 
 Liixcjnboiirg is almost ti7tiversal" 
 
Catholic Countries and Education. 187 
 
 In the provinces of Namur and Limburg, which are 
 both CathoHc, the same satisfactory results are obtained. 
 Baron Kervyn de Lettenhove proved the other day in 
 the Belgian Chamber of Representatives that his own 
 district of Ecloo, which the liberals style '* clerical," 
 is far superior in its elementary instruction to the 
 "Hberal" town of Brussels, the capital of the king- 
 dom. 
 
 It is well known to all who study such matters that 
 the industrial districts of Liege, and of Mons in Bel- 
 gium, which are the strongholds of liberal sentiments, 
 are ranked amongst the most uneducated parts of the 
 country. 
 
 The high degree of perfection attained by the 
 Germans in their elementary system cannot be denied, 
 but to attribute it to Lutheranism, or to the Prussian 
 Union, would be a strange distortion of facts. 
 
 We are ready to admit, with certain reservations, 
 that the Schidzwang (the civil obligation to frequent 
 school) is productive of good, but the following im- 
 portant facts should not be forgotten : — (i) that the 
 Swedish and German schools were until the year 
 1870 denominational ; (2) that in Belgium, where 
 Catholics enjoy liberty, elementary instruction is as 
 far advanced as in Holland, and more advanced than 
 
1 88 Catholic Countries and Education, 
 
 it is in England ; (3) that in Germany the Catholic 
 districts are by no means inferior to those that are 
 non-Catholic, and (4) that France can hold her own 
 against the most prosperous and flourishing of the 
 States in America. 
 
 As regards Switzerland, it is quite possible that in 
 the cantons of the Valais and Ticino, and even in that 
 of Lucerne, there should be less general primary in- 
 struction than in other cantons ; but this fact, even if 
 it be correct, is naturally explained by the difficulty of 
 forming schools in mountainous districts inhabited by 
 a scattered population. 
 
 Since the year 1870 it has become the fashion 
 amongst a certain school to represent Prussia as the 
 classical ground of every social and political truth, 
 and to quote amongst these instruction in general, 
 and elementary instruction in particular, as the special 
 fruits of Protestantism. Now it will be found on in- 
 vestigation that the excellent system of education in 
 Prussia is owing in a great measure to the Catholics. 
 
 A hundred years ago the margravate of Branden- 
 bourg was with regard to elementary instruction one 
 of the most backward States of Europe, and this after 
 200 years of Lutheran civilization. 
 
 During that period the Elector, to show his dis- 
 
CatJwlic Countries and Education. 189 
 
 pleasure against some of the university professors, 
 ordered them to be left naked on the ice. 
 
 The peasants were treated with the greatest seve- 
 rity, and the recruiting sergeant was much more re- 
 spected than the few successors of the Catholic 
 masters who had founded the ancient parochial and 
 conventual schools. Elementary ignorance prevailed. 
 Even in the reign of Frederic II., at the time when 
 certain efforts had already been made towards chang- 
 ing a state of things so prejudicial to the population, 
 no one thought of attaching to education the im- 
 portance that has been given to it in the present 
 day by Herr Falck and his admirers in foreign 
 countries. 
 
 *' The catechism and the four rules are sufficient " 
 were the words (in a letter to Voltaire) of the philo- 
 sopher Ring, who is now quoted as the precursor of 
 national liberals. 
 
 In Silesia, which at that epoch formed part of the 
 monarchy of the Hapsburgs, the situation was quite 
 different. Every locality was provided with a school, 
 either parochial or conventual. 
 
 In Lower and Middle Silesia there were many Pro- 
 testants who enjoyed a satisfactory elementary educa- 
 tion by reason of civil liberty, which did not then exist 
 
iQO Catholic Countries and Education. 
 
 in the Protestant State of Brandenbourg, any more 
 than at the present day. 
 
 When Frederic II. inaugurated the series of 
 Prussian annexations by the forcible conquest of 
 Silesia, he remembered the services rendered to his 
 house by the Jesuits, in working for the transforma- 
 tion of the Duchy of Prussia into a kingdom.^ 
 
 After the suppression of the society he maintained its 
 members in many of the ancient colleges, which pre- 
 served their Catholic aspect though they were turned 
 into State institutions. 
 
 Frederic II. protected the popular schools of the 
 Augustinians, whose establishments eventually be- 
 came model schools. 
 
 The prior of Sagan Felbiger and his famous scho- 
 lasticiiSy Strauss, may be regarded as the real orga- 
 nizers of the old Prussian system, for the school 
 regulations of 1801 were based on the institution of 
 these clericals. In the new provinces of the West, 
 similar facts are to be noticed. Quite recently a 
 statue was erected at Munster in Westphalia in honour 
 of Baron Furstenberg, who had brought popular in- 
 struction to the highest degree of prosperity. 
 
 ' See '"'' Les AUemands depuis la guer?'e de sept ans" by Baron 
 de HauUeville. Brussels. 
 
Catholic Coimtries and Education. 191 
 
 In this clerical scheme he had received the assistance 
 of the well-known Overberg. 
 
 The establishment of schools throughout Prussia is 
 due to Protestantism neither in the West nor in the 
 East. The government inherited the original schools, 
 which were Catholic, and the model of the present 
 denominational institutions. 
 
 The present richness of popular instruction in 
 Prussia is due to the scrupulous observance of their 
 original character. Since 1870 the ruling powers seem 
 to/ have become infatuated. The denominational 
 aspect of elementary teaching has been radically 
 suppressed, or at least perverted, and many per- 
 sons believe that the superiority of the Prussian 
 system is now doomed, since the life which the 
 Catholic founders had breathed into it has been de- 
 stroyed. 
 
 *'No State," says M. Dahlmann, a celebrated Pro- 
 testant Prussian of the old school, and professor of 
 the University at Bonn, '' has ever monopolized the 
 education of children, to bring them up after its own 
 fashion, without doing prejudice to the better part of- 
 the people ; our foresight prevents us from selling souls 
 to the State." 
 
 Protestants frequently assert that the organization 
 
192 CatJiolic Countries and Education. 
 
 of popular instruction dates from the time of the Re- 
 formation, but this is incorrect. 
 
 Previous to the invention of typography, i.e. before 
 the end of the fifteenth century, the Catholic clergy 
 were the sole guardians of the wants of public instruc- 
 tion. 
 
 It is not within the scope of this work to enter into 
 a description of the schools of the Middle Ages, from 
 Charlemagne to Charles V., or to explain how the art 
 of printing gave a new impetus to education, but the 
 study is one of great interest and the subject but little 
 known. 
 
 The enemies of the Catholic Church are inclined to 
 confound her history with that of the Middle Ages, 
 which should be kept totally distinct. 
 
 The schools of the Middle Ages did not equal those 
 of our own day as regards their discoveries in science, 
 chemistry, machinery, astronomy, and physics ; but 
 reading, writing, and the four rules of arithmetic were 
 taught then exactly as they are now, and moral 
 sciences (the most important of all) were taught in the 
 professorial chairs of the universities with as much 
 splendour as could be claimed for the most renowned 
 modern academies of Germany. 
 
 Who amongst the German philosophers of the 
 
Catholic CoimUdes and Education. 193 
 
 present day can be compared to St. Thomas of Aquin, 
 the great Dominican of the thirteenth century (the 
 Angel of the Schools, as he was called), who taught and 
 lectured in the various universities scattered through- 
 out France, Germany, and Italy ? 
 
 When illustrious writers like M. Donnet de Vorges 
 and Dr. Van Weddingen see no hope for modern 
 philosophy save in a deep study of ideology and 
 scholastic metaphysics, we are filled with wonder, 
 and contrast their language with that of those 
 powerful minds who enlightened the world from the 
 time of St. Bernard down to that of St. Ignatius of 
 Loyola. 
 
 Albert the Great, Roger Bacon, the author of " The 
 Imitation of Christ," Dante, and Petrarch are not in- 
 ferior to Virchow, Haeckel, M. de Sybel, and Madame 
 Louise Miihlbach ; and few poems of modern times 
 can be said to breathe forth the same depth of inspira- 
 tion as the epic poems of the Middle Ages 1 
 
 The statement is frequently made that Catholics 
 are forbidden to read, as reading may lead to heresy, 
 and that therefore they must be more ignorant than 
 Protestants ; and also that the Reformed Church rests 
 upon a book. 
 
 In such an assertion two fallacies may be detected : 
 
 O 
 
194 Catholic Cou7iUHes and Education, 
 
 (ist), Catholics do read, and are not afraid of study — 
 witness the names of such men as Bossuet, Fenelon, 
 Massillon, Corneille, Racine, Balmez, Lingard, Du- 
 panloup, Ketteler, Newman, Secchi, Waterton, Man- 
 ning, Paley, Hergenrother, Wiseman, &c. &c. ; (2nd), 
 Protestant Churches do not rest upon the Bible, but 
 upon the symbolical Scriptures. 
 
 Luther certainly professed to teach the doctrine of 
 the private interpretation of each individual, but for 
 all that he did not admit that anyone should resist 
 his interpretation. He took good care to lose no time 
 in drawing up with the aid of his friends and partisans 
 a creed called " The Confession of Augsburg," which 
 the princes enriched with the spoils of the Church dis- 
 seminated throughout their districts by the help of 
 fire and sword. 
 
 This new creed cannot properly be called biblical, 
 since the doctrines it teaches upon grace and faith 
 without works are not to be found in the pages of 
 Holy Writ. 
 
 The diffusion of instruction has nothing in common 
 with the Protestant doctrine of private interpretation, 
 for Protestants scarcely ever apply this latter to their 
 religious teaching, preferring the system of the Catholic 
 C hu rch {cmctoritative) . 
 
Catholic Coitntries and Education. 195 
 
 It may be as well to add that Luther's efforts in 
 favour of public instruction date only from the second 
 part of his career. 
 
 The destruction of canonries, of convents, and of 
 monasteries which Catholic piety had thickly planted 
 throughout the land, brought in their train the ruin of 
 the schools that were supported by the secular and 
 regular clergy. 
 
 In a short space of time a frightful falling off 
 ■ensued, both in instruction and morals, and it was 
 at this critical period of his existence that Luther 
 found his work was threatened, and began to ex- 
 patiate unceasingly upon the necessity of public 
 education.* 
 
 Luther's doctrine on grace and on the real presence 
 gave rise, as is well known, to the most lively disputes 
 between his partisans and those of Calvin and Zwingle 
 respectively. Each party laid claim to a doctrinal 
 infallibility demonstrated by Scripture, and these op- 
 posite pretensions were more than once defended, not 
 by means of briefs and encyclicals, but by the sword, 
 and the material victory of the one entailed as a con- 
 sequence the moral oppression of the other. 
 
 "The Confession of Augsburg" was opposed in 
 
 * See Works of Luther, Walsche, Menzel. 
 
196 Catholic CoM7itries and Education. 
 
 the West of Germany by the Reformed Church 
 proper. 
 
 The rulers of the different Protestant States of the 
 old Germanic Empire adopted either " The Confession 
 of Augsburg," or " The Catechism of Heidelberg," ac- 
 cording as such a change suited their fancy or their 
 temporal interests. 
 
 The people who theoretically possessed the right of 
 private interpretation were not consulted, any more 
 than the clergy, and yet both were entitled to have an 
 opinion on the subject as well as their rulers. The 
 variations of official Prussia eclipse all the other Ger- 
 man States, and " The Confession of Augsburg" is in- 
 teresting, inasmuch as it gives great insight into its 
 religious theories. 
 
 In consequence of an alliance with the House of 
 Orange, the Dutch reformed worship became prevalent 
 at the Court of Brandenbourg, and the Lutheran 
 preachers were morally and sometimes even physically 
 compelled to permit Calvinist doctrines to be pro- 
 pounded from their pulpits. 
 
 Calvinist pastors were quietly forced upon Lutheran 
 parishes, and those Lutherans who refused to submit 
 to this form of free interpretation were brutally de- 
 posed and banished in much the same fashion as. 
 
Catholic Countries and Ediuation. 197 
 
 Catholic priests are treated in the present day under 
 the ministry of Herr Falck. 
 
 We may cite Gerhard, well known throughout 
 Europe for the services he rendered to the develop- 
 ment of Protestant church music, as amongst the 
 victims of the Calvinistic heresy. 
 
 The greater number of preachers preferred to pre- 
 serve their posts by the adoption of " The Catechism 
 of Heidelberg," and were obedient to the commands 
 of the Court. 
 
 After the Congress of Vienna, in 181 5, which, as is 
 well known, gave to Prussia a new portion of terri- 
 tory inhabited by Lutheran Saxons, the official Church 
 of Prussia, under the military pastoral staff of its chief 
 bishop the king, ordered a fusion of the two creeds by 
 means of an Union in the Sacrament, which Union was 
 carried out with the greatest coolness and precision. 
 On the 30th June, 1817, an order from the Minister of 
 Home Affairs abolished the names of Lutheran and 
 Calvinistic Churches, and also the historically signifi- 
 cant and distinctive name of Protestant Church, and 
 commanded the general use of the name Evangelical 
 Church alone. 
 
 The Berlin Synod had framed this new Church to 
 suit the king, and by an equivoque unworthy of 
 
198 Catholic Coimtries and Education, 
 
 Christian men, or men sitting upon public affairs of 
 religious import, framed the external observances so 
 that any man might partake of the Lord's Supper in 
 this new Church without being less a Lutheran or 
 Calvinist than he was before. 
 
 Some few communities declared themselves free,, 
 v/hilst others found consolation in silently permitting 
 a generous but barren form of pietism to be imposed 
 upon them from high quarters. 
 
 Enlightened men adopted Hegel's doctrine of the 
 State being the divine ruler in the place of God, but 
 the mass of the people were insensibly converted to 
 the Union by their schoolmasters and the aid of the 
 military. 
 
 The Prussian Union has shown itself to be a verit- 
 able State Church, and may be said to be crumbling 
 away before our eyes, since the rite of baptism is no 
 longer legally requisite, and civil marriage has been 
 introduced into the code of law. 
 
 The middle classes take Httle heed of the perilous 
 position of their Church, a civilizing form of scepticism 
 serves them as a provisional retrenchment under the 
 protection of an army of 12,000 men. 
 
 The Prussian Union was an attempt to impose new 
 shackles on the human mind, to turn religion into a 
 
Catholic Countries a7id Ediication. 199 
 
 support of despotism, and to train the Prussian mind 
 as the Russian mind is trained, into a rehgious venera- 
 tion for, and worship of the supreme autocratic head 
 of the State. 
 
 The principle that the civil g^overnment or State is 
 entitled to regulate the religious belief of a country 
 has more of intellectual thraldom in it than the power 
 of the Catholic Church could ever have exercised 
 according to the belief of Protestants in the darkest 
 ages, for it had no civil power joined to its religious 
 power. 
 
 The Catholic Church was an independent, distinct, 
 and often an opposing power in every country to the 
 civil authority, a circumstance in the social economy 
 of the Middle Ages to which Europe is indebted for 
 her civilization and freedom. 
 
 When governments attempt to extend their power 
 beyond the legitimate object for which government is 
 established in society, and wish to embrace the intel- 
 lectual, moral, and religious concerns as well as the 
 material interests of their subjects, they are obliged to 
 adopt a middle course between the extreme of power 
 they would usurp and the innate principle in the 
 human mind of resistance to power over intellectual 
 action. 
 
200 Catholic Countries and Education. 
 
 This middle course, founded on no principle but the 
 evasion of applying principle to action, has been the 
 line of policy of most European statesmen during this 
 century. 
 
 Whilst Europe was singing the praises of the 
 Prussian system of education, this same system was 
 driving upwards of 600 Christians from the land by 
 religious persecution, who went from Silesia to the 
 wilds of America, in order that they might worship 
 the Almighty after their own fashion rather than at 
 the dictation of their sovereign. 
 
 Whilst the condition of Prussia as regards education 
 stood undoubtedly high, her moral state was so low 
 that a sect called the Muckers, who openly taught the 
 most disgusting practices and observances,^ embraced 
 hundreds of the nobility and clergy. 
 
 If to read, write, and cipher be education, the 
 Prussians are an educated people ; but if to reason, 
 judge, and act as an independent free agent in the 
 religious, moral, and social relations of man to his 
 Creator and to his fellow-men be that exercise of 
 the mental powers which alone deserves the name 
 of education, then are the Prussians utterly defi- 
 cient. 
 
 ' See Laing's " Notes of a Traveller." 
 
Catholic Countries aiid Education, 201 
 
 The intellectual dependence of the people upon the 
 government, the abject submission to the want of 
 freedom, or free agency, in thoughts, words, or acts, 
 the religious thraldom of the people to forms which 
 they despise, the want of influence, of religious and 
 social principle in society, justify us in our state- 
 ments. 
 
 The working classes in the Protestant districts 
 of Pomerania, Brandenbourg, Eastern and Western 
 Prussia proper, Schleswig, Holstein, and Saxony are 
 drifting by steady progress towards socialism, which 
 is called " the religion of the future." 
 
 The present is a strange moment for the liberals to 
 choose in order to proclaim the advantages to be 
 derived from the reading of the Bible, when it is a 
 known fact that few persons read it in the Protestant 
 parts of Germany, especially since the Protestanten- 
 verein has disseminated the criticisms of Strauss 
 against that holy book. 
 
 The present administration of Prussia has made 
 efforts to restrict the reading of the Bible in the 
 schools, and there are throughout Germany men who 
 flourish on the heights of civilization who consider 
 that the youth of our day are too intelligent to lose 
 time over the reading of " legends " that command 
 
202 Catholic Countries and Education, 
 
 respect, but that cannot brook the light of modern 
 science. 
 
 They reason like Schiller, in his famous lines: — 
 
 " Welche Religion ich bekenne ? Keine von alien 
 Die du mir nennst. Und warum Keine ? 
 
 Aus Religion." ' 
 
 Religious disorganization has attained such alarm- 
 ing proportions throughout the northern districts of 
 Germany that Catholics are anxious to see no further 
 decrease in the numbers of believing Protestants, for 
 though they may not be members of the true Church, 
 they yet have some belief in the truths of a revealed 
 religion. 
 
 Before concluding this subject we will prove still 
 further by the light of history the ignorance of those 
 persons who accuse Catholics of favouring ignorance. 
 
 Without going as far back as the " dark ages," when 
 according to the testimony of the Protestant histo- 
 rian Voigt, Pope Gregory VI I. urged all the bishops 
 to protect arts and letters, and to found schools ^ in 
 connection with their cathedral churches, we will quote 
 
 ' [Translation.] "You ask me what religion I profess? No one 
 of these which you name. And wherefore no one of them ? For 
 religion," .... &c. 
 
 2 See " Why are we Catholics ?" by Keenan. 
 
Catholic CottntiHes and Education. 203 
 
 the opinions of Burke, of Gibbon, and of Hutchinson. 
 The first declared that France alone had produced more 
 remarkable men than all the Protestant universities of 
 Europe; the second, that one monastery of Benedic- 
 tine monks had produced more scientific books than 
 all the universities of England; and the third ex- 
 pressed himself in Parliament to the effect that "Catho- 
 licism, which has been to-night the object of so many 
 insults, was at one period the religion of the most 
 numerous, the religion of the most enlightened nations 
 of Europe, and the religion of the most famous charac- 
 ters who have ever honoured the name of man." ^ 
 
 The proverb that " Ignorance is the mother of 
 vice," was a common saying in the Church long be- 
 fore the birth of Luther, but the great circumstance 
 which has favoured the calumny of the adversaries of 
 the Catholic Church exists in the fact that the inven- 
 tion of printing scarcely preceded by seventy years 
 the introduction of Protestantism into Europe. 
 
 Before the end of the fifteenth century printing 
 presses were founded in thirty-four towns of France, 
 and from the year 1455 to 1536, 22,032,900 volumes 
 were printed. 
 
 The Popes Nicholas V. and Sixtus IV. are cele- 
 , ' See Cobbett, Lingard. 
 
204 Catholic Coicntries and Educatio7i, 
 
 brated in history for their protection of the sciences 
 and arts, and for their munificence in the advancement 
 of education. 
 
 Ten universities were founded in Germany between 
 the years 1403 and 1506. 
 
 Since the Reformation (for the space of 300 years) 
 Protestants have founded but two universities (London 
 and Dublin). Modern Europe is indebted to the 
 CathoHc Church for its civiHzation, its laws, its know- 
 ledge of the fine arts, for the origin of painting, of 
 sculpture, of music, and of architecture. 
 
 The magnificent abbeys and cathedrals that have 
 escaped the Vandalism of the Reformation, and the 
 ruins of those buildings which the ravages of Calvinists 
 and Puritans have not altogether destroyed, are living 
 witnesses of this fact. 
 
 " Religion and civilization can never repay the debt they owe 
 to the pontiffs or the Church of Rome, who for so long a period 
 made the most noble efforts to advance mankind upon the path 
 of progress."* 
 
 The statement that Catholics are forbidden to read 
 the Scriptures is scarcely worthy of refutation. 
 
 No one who has studied the literature of the Middle 
 Ages can have failed to perceive the strongest evidence 
 
 1 " Life of Wallenstein," by Colonel Mitchell. 
 
Catholic Countries and Education, 205 
 
 of the deep biblical knowledge it contains. Maitland/ 
 in his "Dark Ages," writes thus: — 
 
 " The writings of the dark ages are made of the Scriptures. I 
 do not merely mean that the writers constantly quoted the Scrip- 
 tures, and appealed to them as authorities on all occasions ; but I 
 mean that they thought and spoke and wrote the thoughts and 
 words and phrases of the Bible, and that they did this constantly 
 and habitually as the natural mode of expressing themselves." 
 
 Further on the same writer adds : — 
 
 " I cannot help suspecting that if Robertson had gone to the 
 Archbishop of Seville in the seventh century, the Archbishop of 
 Mayence in the ninth, or the Bishop of Chartres in the eleventh, 
 for holy orders, he would have found the examination rather 
 more than he expected.'^ P. 25. 
 
 Again he says : — 
 
 " A monk was expected to know the Psalter by heart." P. 338. 
 
 Further on he quotes the famous example of the 
 sermon of the Bishop of Noyon in the seventh century, 
 which Robertson and Mosheim quote as evidence of 
 the barren theology of that age, and remarks : — 
 
 "It seems to have been written as if the- author had anticipated 
 each and all of Mosheim's charges, and intended to furnish a 
 pointed answer to every one." P. 1 1 3. 
 
 " In the eighth and ninth centuries," says Hallam 
 
 1 " The Dark Ages," by the Rev. S. R. Maitland, librarian to 
 the Archbishop of Canterbury. P. 470. 
 
2o6 Catholic Countries and Educatio7i, 
 
 ("Middle Ages," iii. 474), ''when the Vulgate had 
 ceased to be generally intelligible, .... translations 
 were freely made into the vernacular languages." 
 
 We quote a passage from a work entitled " The 
 Reading of the Bible in the Vulgar Tongue," from the 
 pen of Monsignor Malou, Bishop of Bruges : — 
 
 " Has the Church made any law forbidding her children the 
 reading of the Holy Scriptures ? I do not hesitate to answer, 
 No. The Church has never forbidden to the faithful the read- 
 ing of the Bible in any language whatsoever, nor has she autho- 
 rized any monopoly in favour of the clergy." 
 
 The Church has certainly decreed wise restrictions, 
 acting according to the words of St. Peter, who said 
 that certain portions of the epistles of St. Paul "are 
 difficult, hard to be understood, which the unlearned 
 and unstable wrest to their own destruction." ^ 
 
 The prohibition explains itself 
 
 The rule approved of by Benedict XIV. in 1757, 
 which granted to all the faithful the general permission 
 to read the Scriptures in the vulgar tongue, provided 
 the version had received the approval of competent 
 authority, is a decree of the Congregation of the Index. 
 
 The Church causes portions of the Scriptures to be 
 read to the assembled faithful in her daily offices. 
 
 ' See Second Epistle of St. Peter, chap, iii. verse 16. 
 
Catholic Countries a7id Educatio7i, 207 
 
 In the year 1826 the EngHsh Catholic Bishops 
 publicly declared that the Church had never prevented 
 the circulation of authentic copies of Holy Writ.^ 
 
 Pius VIL, in a letter addressed to the same, dated 
 i8th of April, 1826, made use of the following injunc- 
 tion : — 
 
 " To exhort the faithful to read the Sacred Scriptures, since 
 nothing is more beneficial and more calculated to console and 
 comfort them." 
 
 Pius VI., writing to Martini, Archbishop of Florence, 
 on the subject of his translation of the Bible, congratu- 
 lates him on his zeal in publishing it, and exhorts the 
 faithful to study it. The letter is dated April, i j'jZ, and 
 may be found in the title-page of most Catholic ver- 
 sions of the Sacred Scriptures. 
 
 Before the birth of Protestantism, upwards of twenty 
 translations of the Bible in the principal modern lan- 
 guages existed. 
 
 The following is an enumeration of some of these 
 old translations : — 
 
 Bible of Just, at Mayence, in ... . 1462 
 „ Bender, at Augsburg, in . . . 1467 
 „ Malermi, in Italy, in ... . 1471 
 
 ' A pamphlet has recently been published by the Rev. Kenelm 
 Vaughan, entitled " The Popular Use of the Bible Encouraged 
 by the Catholic Church." 
 
/ 
 
 2o8 Catholic Countries and Education. 
 
 The four Gospels in Flemish, in 
 The entire Bible in Low Dutch, in 
 Bible of Julien, in . . . 
 
 Delft, in . . . 
 
 Ferrier, in Spanish, in . 
 
 Gouda, in . . . 
 
 Des Moulins, in French, in 
 
 Four translations mentioned by Beausobre, 
 
 (" Histoire de la Reformation," book iv.)/ 
 
 printed before . . ... 
 
 5) 
 
 1472 
 
 1475 
 1477^ 
 1477 
 
 '^78 
 
 ,'479 
 /1490 
 
 /. 1522 
 
 To this enumeration must be added th^ foUowinp* 
 list of manuscripts : — / 
 
 Bible 
 
 in English, in . 
 
 
 
 n 
 
 Anglo-Saxon, in . 
 
 
 
 ">•) 
 
 German, in . 
 
 
 
 5) 
 
 Italian, in 
 
 1 
 
 
 3) 
 
 Spanish, in . 
 
 
 
 11 
 
 French, in 
 
 • 
 
 • • 
 
 / 
 / 
 
 1290 
 
 1300 
 800 
 
 1270 
 1280 
 
 1294 
 
 Previous to Luther there were thr/.^ translations and 
 many editions of the Bible publi.^j^^^ j^^ j^^^^^ ^^^^ 
 translations and a vast number of editions in Gothic 
 and in French, and two tran^j^^j^^^ ^^^ ^^^eral 
 editions in Flemish. / 
 
 A Czech translation was publ^i^^^ in Prague, in the 
 year 1488, at Putna in 1498, j^^^ ^^ y^^j^^ j^ ^^^^ 
 and 15 1 1. , 
 
 A large number of translat:^^^^^ j^ ^^^^^^ ^^^ry lan- 
 guage of the world were publjgj^^^ j^ -^^^^^ 
 
Catholic Countries arid Edtication. 209 
 
 The prejudices of many people are, however, so 
 deeply seated against everything Catholic, that it 
 is a work of some difficulty to persuade them that 
 Luther v/as not the first translator of the Bible into 
 German. 
 
 Before his lamentable apostacy, there were twenty- 
 one German translations extant (fifteen in High Ger- 
 man and six in Low German). Luther himself made 
 use of the translation of Nicholas of Lyra (which ap- 
 peared in 1473, ^^d went through several editions 
 before the Reformation), and to such an extent that 
 a facetious poet clothed the well-known fact in 
 these words, ''Si Lyra non lyr assets Liitheriis non 
 salt assets 
 
 A Presbyterian writer/ in his " Notes of a Traveller," 
 makes the following admissions : — 
 
 " The education of the clergy of the Catholic Church is posi- 
 tively higher and, beyond doubt, comparatively higher than the 
 education of the Scotch clergy. 
 
 By positively higher is meant that among a given number of 
 Popish and of Scotch clergy a greater proportion of the former 
 will be found who read with ease, and a perfect mastery, the 
 ancient languages of Greek and Latin, and the Hebrew and the 
 Eastern languages connected with that of the Old Testament — 
 a greater number of profound scholars, a greater number of high 
 
 ^ See " Notes of a Traveller," by Laing. Longmans, London, 
 1842. 
 
 P 
 
2 10 Catholic Countries and Education. 
 
 mathematicians, and a higher average amount of acquired 
 knowledge. 
 
 It is very much owing to the zeal and assiduity of the priest- 
 hood in diffusing instruction in the useful branches of knowledge, 
 that the revival and spread of Catholicism have been so con- 
 siderable among the people of the Continent, who were left by the 
 Revolution, and the warfare attending it, in that state that if the 
 Catholic religion had not connected itself with something visibly 
 useful, with material interests, they would have had nothing to 
 do with it. 
 
 The Catholic clergy adroitly seized on education — not as most 
 of us suppose in Protestant countries, to keep the people in dark- 
 ness and ignorance, and to inculcate error and superstition — 
 but to be at the head of the great social influence of useful 
 knowledge, and with the conviction that this knowledge (read- 
 ing, writing, arithmetic, and all such acquirements) is no more 
 thinking, or an education leading to thinking, and to shaking off 
 the trammels of Popish superstition than playing the fiddle, or 
 painting, or any other acquirement to which mind is applied." 
 
 With reference to the stupid assertion that the 
 
 Catholic clergy leave the people in ignorance, he writes 
 
 as follows : — 
 
 " This opinion of Protestants is more orthodox than charitable 
 or correct. The Popish clergy have in reality less to lose by the 
 progress of education than our owti Scotch ministers, because 
 their pastoral influence and their Church services being founded 
 on ceremonial ordinances, come into no competition or compari- 
 son whatsoever in the public mind with anything similar that 
 literature or education produces ; and are not connected with the 
 imperfect mode of conveying instruction which, as education 
 advances, becomes obsolete, and falls into disuse, and almost 
 into contempt, although essential in our Scotch Church. 
 
Catholic Countries and Education. 211 
 
 In Catholic Germany, in France, Italy, and even Spain, the 
 education of the common people in reading, writing, arithmetic, 
 music, manners, and morals is at least as generally diffused and 
 as faithfully promoted by the clerical body as in Scotland. 
 
 It is by their own advance, and not by keeping back the ad- 
 vance of the people, that the Popish priesthood of the present 
 day seek to keep ahead of the intellectual progress of the com- 
 munity in Catholic lands ; and they might, perhaps, retort on the 
 Protestant clergy, and ask if they, too, are in their countries at 
 the head of the intellectual movement of the age ? 
 
 Education is in reality not only not repressed, but is encou- 
 raged by the Popish Church, and is a mighty instrument in its 
 hands, and ably used. 
 
 In every street in Rome, for instance, there are, at short dis- 
 tances, public primary schools for the education of the children 
 of the lower and middle classes in the neighbourhood. 
 
 Rome, with a population of 158,678 souls, has 372 public 
 primary schools, with 482 teachers, and 14,099 children attend- 
 ing them. 
 
 Has Edinburgh so many public schools for the instruction of 
 those classes ? 
 
 I doubt it. Berlin, with a population about double that of 
 Rome, has only 264 schools. 
 
 Rome has also her university, with an average attendance of 
 660 students ; and the Papal States, with a population of two and 
 a half millions, contain seven universities. 
 
 Prussia, with a population of fourteen millions, has but seven. 
 
 These are amusing statistical facts, and instructive as well as 
 amusing, when we remember the boasting carried on about the 
 Prussian educational system for the people, and the establish- 
 ment of governmental schools, and enforcing by police regula- 
 tions the school attendance of the children of the lower classes. 
 
 The statistical fact that Rome has above a hundred schools 
 
212 CatJiolic Cotmtries and Education. 
 
 more than Berlin, for a population little more than half of that 
 of Berlin, puts to flight a world of humbug about systems of 
 national education carried on by governments, and their moral 
 effects on society. 
 
 Is it asked what is taught to the people of Rome by all these 
 schools ? Precisely what is taught at Berlin — reading, writing, 
 arithmetic, geography, history, languages, religious doctrine of 
 some sort, and, above all, the habit of passive submission in 
 the one city to the clerical, in the other to the government 
 authorities. 
 
 The Continental people had a religion to choose at the begin- 
 ning of this centur}\ How have the two Churches of Europe 
 availed themselves of this peculiar state of the European mind ? 
 
 The Protestant Church is shaken to the foundation in her 
 ancient seats in Germany and Switzerland ; and as a body politic 
 has lost, instead of gaining influence. 
 
 The Roman Catholic Church has held the bridle, has entered 
 more fully into the spirit of the age, and has exerted its elasticity 
 to cover with the mantle of Catholicism, opinions wide enough to 
 have formed irreconcilable schisms and sects in former ages. 
 
 The Catholic religion adapts itself to every degree of intelli- 
 gence, and 'to every class of intellect. 
 
 I strolled one Sunday evening in Prussia into the Roman 
 Catholic church at Bonn. The priest was catechizing, examin- 
 ing, and instructing the children of the parish, in the same way, 
 and upon the same plan, and with the same care to awaken the 
 intellectual powers of each child by appropriate questions and 
 explanations, as in our well-conducted Sunday schools. 
 
 And what of all subjects was the subject this Catholic priest 
 was explaining and inculcating to Catholic children, and by his 
 familiar questions, and their answers, bringing most admirably 
 home to their intelligence ? — the total uselessness and inefficacy 
 of mere forms of prayer, if not understood and accompanied by 
 
Catholic Countries and Educatio7i. 213 
 
 mental occupation with the subject, and the preference of silent 
 mental prayer to all forms ; and this most beautifully brought out 
 to suit the intelligence of the children." 
 
 The assertion that progress and Protestantism go 
 hand in hand is as false as the assumption that doc- 
 trinal purity was begotten by the apostacy of Luther. 
 
 Evidence of the kind we have quoted, given by our 
 opponents, ought to open the eyes of those most 
 blinded by prejudice to the fact that the Catholic 
 Church not only loves but encourages art and science. 
 
 The following are the words of the present Pontiff, 
 Leo XIII. , on this subject : — 
 
 " How grand and full of majesty does man appear when he 
 arrests the thunderbolt, .... summons the electric flash, .... 
 how powerful when he takes possession of the force of steam. 
 .... Is there not in man when he does these things some spark of 
 creative power ? . . . . The Church views these things with joy." ' 
 
 The Catholic Church respects science because it 
 
 comes from God. 
 
 " Catholicism is the greatest and the holiest school of respect 
 that the world has ever possessed." 
 
 Such are the words of M. Guizot,^ and they are 
 
 ' See Lenten Pastoral for 1877, by Cardinal Pecci, now Pope 
 Leo XI IL, entitled "The Church and Civilization." Published 
 in English by McGlashan and Gill, 50, Upper Sackville Street, 
 Dublin. 
 
 "^ See " Me'ditations et Etudes morales ^^ by M. Guizot. 
 
214 Catholic Countries and Education. 
 
 applicable to the Catholic Church, and to her alone, 
 although many people have made the attempt to in- 
 clude the various Protestant sects under the term of 
 Catholicism. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 RELATIVE MORALITY OF CATHOLIC AND PRO- 
 TESTANT COUNTRIES. 
 
 Literar)'^ corruption in France, the consequence of anti- Catholic 
 doctrines — Political absolutism the antithesis of the Catholic 
 Church — The Catholic Church the only authority that has 
 maintained the positively moral character of marriage — 
 Morals in Spain and Italy contrasted with those in Protestant 
 countries — Average illegitimacy greater amongst the latter — 
 Immorality in the north of Europe — Statistics of immorality 
 in England. 
 
 HE assertion is frequently made by the 
 
 modern school of liberals that all the 
 
 continental literature that is in vogue is 
 
 vitiated by a current of immorality, and 
 
 that those nations which may be designated as Catholic 
 
 are more immoral than those that are Protestant. 
 
 In order to appreciate things in their true light it is 
 
2 1 6 Relative Morality of Catholic 
 
 necessary to bear in mind, with regard to the hterature 
 thus denounced, that the writers, although nominally 
 Catholic by the accident of their birth, practically 
 reject the teaching of the Church, and are therefore 
 outside her pale. In almost every case they borrow 
 their weapons of war from Paganism and the prin- 
 ciples of the Renaissance. Thus most of the literary 
 characters and politicians in France who have worked 
 for the emancipation of the mind have been tainted 
 with a shade of immorality, whilst those who respect 
 morals are, in almost every instance, partisans of the 
 Church. 
 
 In England and America men uphold at the same 
 time synonymously religion, morality, and liberty. 
 
 IM. Taine, a Positivist, and M. Prevost-Paradol 
 make the assertion that the principle of morality in 
 France is based on honour, whilst in England it is 
 based on a sense of stern duty. 
 
 There is much that is true in these arguments, 
 though there are many misconceptions. For instance, 
 the principal writers in vogue in France, such as 
 Sainte-Beuve, About, Sardou, and Alexandre Dumas, 
 are all anti-Catholic in sentiment and feeHng; their 
 works are deeply tinged with immorality, but they 
 have been translated into English and German, and 
 
and Protestant Cowitries, 217 
 
 form some of the most popular literature in England 
 and Prussia. 
 
 The giants of contemporary French literature, such 
 as Chateaubriand, Gratry, Autran, Laprade, Mon- 
 talembert, Dupanloup, and Lacordaire, have all been 
 Catholics ; and it is a remarkable fact that some of 
 the most eminent writers throughout Europe, such as 
 Dr. Newman and Dr. Lingard in England, Joseph 
 Gorres in Germany, Manzoni in Italy, and Balmez in 
 Spain have been also Catholics. 
 
 We do not wish to deny that the pious remnant of 
 Protestants in the present day are more pure, more 
 moral, and more Christian than ]\Iirabeau (the friend 
 of Frederick II.), Saint Just, and Robespierre, nor do 
 we refuse to admit that sincere Protestantism {i.e. 
 incomplete Christianity) is superior to Paganism ; but 
 no proof of moral superiority of Protestantism over 
 the Universal Church ever has or ever will be shown. 
 
 Let it be clearly understood that we do not claim 
 for Catholics impeccability from the mere fact that 
 they accept the decrees of the Church. It is not suffi- 
 cient to profess the faith ; to be a real Catholic it is 
 necessary to put its teaching into practice and fulfil its 
 precepts. 
 ' It must also be borne in mind that in Catholic 
 
2i8 Relative Morality of Catholic 
 
 countries such as Belgium, France, Italy, Spain and 
 Portugal, and parts of Germany, social and political 
 revolutions, fomented by the social iitfluence of Pro- 
 testantism, have produced a state of things that 
 renders it very difficult, not to say impossible, to dis- 
 tinguish those that are real Catholics from the mass 
 of the nominal Catholic population. Everywhere the 
 good grain is found mingled in close proximity with 
 the bad. One thing is certain, that, even from the 
 historical point of view, no Church in the annals of 
 the world has maintained with such force the Divine 
 precepts of the Sixth ^ and Ninth Commandments 
 as the Catholic Church. Numbers of people would 
 be excellent Catholics if they could suppress these 
 two obstacles that obstruct the indulgence of their 
 passions. 
 
 The curse of the heresy of the sixteenth century 
 
 ' The division of the Ten Commandments used by the Catholic 
 Church is here followed. Amongst Protestants the allusion 
 would refer to the seventh and tenth. 
 
 The Commandments as given in Holy Scripture are not 
 divided at all. Hence it has come to pass that two different 
 methods of dividing them have prevailed. Among the Jews 
 that arrangement was followed which Protestants have adopted, 
 and this distribution is to be found in some of the Fathers. But 
 the arrangement used in the Catholic Church is that which was 
 followed by St. Augustine, and upheld as the most natural. 
 
a7id Protestant Countries. 219 
 
 consisted in the fact that it denied the sacramental 
 character of marriage, and thus lowered the tone and 
 standard of morality. 
 
 The Evangelical Consistory assembled in full council, 
 authorized Philip, the generous Elector of Hesse, on 
 the strength of Melancthon's tolerant maxims, to seat 
 two Electresses upon the throne at the same time. 
 
 The King of Prussia, Frederick William II., who 
 had given his right hand to his queen, gave his left to 
 Countess Julia Von Voss. 
 
 This second marriage ceremony was performed on 
 the 25th of May, 1787, in the chapel of the castle at 
 Charlottenburg, by Zoellner, the chaplain of the royal 
 family at the Court. 
 
 Liberalism, which is in some respects a degeneration 
 from Protestantism, is doctrinally incapable of stem- 
 ming the natural consequences of the suppression of 
 the sacrament of marriage. 
 
 Outside the Catholic faith practised in spirit and in 
 truth, people can doubtless be chaste, but it is because 
 they more or less put in practice the teaching and 
 habits of the Church. 
 
 in order to be able to make the assertion that the 
 sincere practice of the Catholic faith can produce im- 
 morality, one must be totally ignorant of the whole 
 
2 20 Relative Morality of Catholic 
 
 organization of the Church, of the teaching it embodies, 
 and the whole spiritual conditions of its existence. 
 It is, in fact, a logical contradiction. Much has been 
 said since the Franco-Prussian war of 1870 about the 
 immorality of the French, which is supposed to have 
 proved itself an ally to the schoolmaster at Sedan, 
 and we are aware that the greatest military authority 
 in the German army sung the praises of German 
 morality, from which time may be dated the phrase 
 so often made use of in the press, that Berlin is " the 
 city of pious manners and customs, and of the fear of 
 God." 
 
 It is true that in many parts of France, such as 
 Paris and the departments around it, an immense 
 amount of immorality prevails, but these departments 
 are precisely those in which the influence of the 
 Catholic Church is at its lowest ebb, and has been 
 opposed with the greatest amount of success. 
 
 A cosmopolitan city like Paris cannot be rightly 
 cited as a Catholic town, especially as since the period 
 of the Revolution more than half of its population 
 are in bitter opposition to the teaching of the Church, 
 and it is the centre and focus of the worthless and 
 frivolous of Europe. 
 
 In Berlin vice does not enjoy, as in Paris, a vogue 
 
and Protestant Countries, 221 
 
 organized by literary characters, but without the refine- 
 ment of the French, a gross form of bestiaHty is pre- 
 valent which cannot be exceeded in Europe. 
 
 In the year 1837 ^^e number of females in the 
 Prussian population between the beginning of their 
 sixteenth year and the end of their forty-fifth year, 
 was 2,983,146: the number of illegitimate children 
 born in the same year was 39,501, so that one in 
 every seventy-five of the whole of the females of an 
 age to bear children, had been the mother of an 
 illegitimate child. 
 
 Prince Pukler Muskau^ states in one of his publica- 
 tions that the character of the Prussians for honesty 
 stands far lower than that of any other of the German 
 populations, and as a Prussian he would scarcely 
 come to such a conclusion unless it were generally 
 believed in Germany. 
 
 Laing says : — 
 
 " It is an undeniable fact that the Prussians are in a remark- 
 ably demoralized condition in those branches of moral conduct 
 which cannot be taught in schools, and are not taught by the 
 parents, because parental tuition is broken in upon by the inter- 
 ference of the government. Of all the virtues that which the 
 domestic family education of both the sexes most obviously 
 influences, that which marks more clearly than any other the 
 
 1 a 
 
 Siidostlicher Bildersaal^'' 3 vols., 1844. 
 
2 22 Relative Morality of Catholic 
 
 moral condition of a society, the home state of moral and 
 religious principles, the efficiency of those principles in it, and 
 the amount of that moral restraint upon passions and impul'^'^^ 
 which it is the object of education and knowledge to obtain, is 
 undoubtedly female chastity. 
 
 And yet I think no traveller or no Prussian will say that this 
 index-virtue of the moral condition of a people is not lower in 
 Prussia than in almost any other part of Europe. 
 
 It is no uncommon event in the family of a respectable trades- 
 man in Berlin to find upon his breakfast-table a little baby of 
 which he has no doubt at all about the maternal grandfather. 
 
 Such accidents are only regarded as youthful indiscretions, 
 and not as disgraces, affecting as with us the respectability and 
 happiness of many a generation." ' 
 
 All the social errors of France are to be found in 
 Prussia, though possibly not so visibly apparent to 
 the public. 
 
 To appreciate the horrors of French vice it is 
 necessary to seek for it in the translations of French 
 works that appear in London and Berlin, in which 
 places divorce has attained proportions unheard of in 
 the history of any Catholic people. Even admitting 
 that Paris is the most demoralized of European cities, 
 side by side with this debasement may be found the 
 radiant sun of charity and good works, to a degree 
 far in excess of any other city of similar size. 
 
 We may sum up in a few words the abyss which 
 
 ' Laing's "Notes of a Traveller," p. 167. 
 
a7id Protestant Countries, 
 
 223 
 
 separates the moral condition of Paris from that of 
 London and BerHn by stating that in Paris the Sisters 
 of Charity are honoured, and the Little Sisters of the 
 Poor protected, whilst in London they are only begin- 
 ning to be tolerated and in Berlin they are actually 
 proscribed. 
 
 In a study upon public health and morality by Dr. 
 Fonsagrives of Montpellier the following statements 
 occur : — 
 
 " It is proved that there is in Europe an average illegitimacy 
 of fifteen children upon every hundred births. I thought it 
 would be an interesting study to compare the extent of legitimacy 
 amongst the European nations of Teutonic and Latin origin, 
 and I found that it was 15 per cent, with the former, and 6*ii 
 per cent, with the latter." 
 
 The statistics recently published (1876) by the 
 Committee of the high Evangelical Consistory on 
 the relative proportion of legitimate to illegitimate 
 births are as follows in the Evangelical parishes of the 
 various districts : — 
 
 Hohenzollern .... 
 
 2*50 per cent 
 
 Westphalia .... 
 
 2-65 „ 
 
 Rhine Provinces 
 
 279 „ 
 
 Posen 
 
 . 677 „ 
 
 Prussian Saxony 
 
 9'12 „ 
 
 Brandenbourg (except Berlin) . 
 
 9"i6 „ 
 
 Prussia Proper .... 
 
 . 9-58 „ 
 
2 24 Relative Morality of Catholic 
 
 Pomerania 9"95 per cent. 
 
 Silesia 10-15 „ 
 
 Berlin I2'9i „ 
 
 The Evangelical Church of Prussia is thus shown 
 by her own confession to be losing her moral and 
 religious ascendency over the minds of the great mass 
 of the population. 
 
 The amount of immorality in Sweden and Norway 
 is prodigious.^ 
 
 Bayard Taylor wrote in the year 1858 that the 
 Church of Sweden appeared to be becoming petrified 
 by pure inertia. Not a single literary production can 
 be cited in the kingdom of Sweden calculated to 
 advance the interests of religion or morality. 
 
 Laing, in his " Notes of a Traveller," from which 
 we have already quoted, says : — 
 
 " Religion has less influence upon public morals than in any 
 other Christian communion. 
 
 In the streets of Stockholm one out of every three persons is 
 illegitimate, and out of forty-nine, one is at least guilty of criminal 
 offences." 
 
 And yet Inglis, another Protestant traveller, is not 
 
 afraid to assert that the degree of morality in Sweden 
 
 is far higher than that in Norway. 
 
 In this latter country, indifference towards every 
 
 » See Marshall's " Christian Missions," vol. ii. p. 544. 
 
a7id Protesta7it Cotmlries, 225 
 
 kind of religion is prevalent. It is scarcely necessary 
 to mention Denmark, the country that gave rise to 
 the sect of the Mormons, and where, in the years 1777 
 and 1789 the pain of death was decreed against any 
 Catholic priest who should place his foot upon Danish 
 soil. 
 
 In Switzerland the discordance between the reli- 
 gious and material state of the people is extraordi- 
 nary. Most travellers are struck with the contrast in 
 the material condition of the Catholic and Protestant 
 cantons, and also with the influence of religion over 
 each. This influence is at its minimum in Protes- 
 tant cantons and at its maximum in those that are 
 Catholic. 
 
 Laing writes as follows : — 
 
 " Geneva, the seat and centre of Calvinism, the earthly source, 
 the pattern of our Presbyterian doctrine and practice, has fallen 
 lower from her own original religion and practice than ever 
 Rome fell. 
 
 Rome has still superstition, Geneva has not even the semblance 
 of religion. In the head-church of the original seat of Calvinism, 
 in a city of 25,000 souls, at the only service on the Sabbath day, 
 I sat down in a congregation of two hundred females and twenty- 
 three males, mostly elderly men of a former generation. 
 
 In no country in Europe is church attendance worse, the 
 regard for the ordinary observances of religious worship less, 
 and religious indifference greater than in Protestant Switzer- 
 land." 
 
 O 
 
226 Relative Morality of Catholic 
 
 If from these countries we were to pass to Scotland, 
 we should have a picture of morality too revolting to 
 lay before the general public ; yet Scotland may be 
 considered as one of the firmest strongholds of the 
 Protestant religion. 
 
 The '' Saturday Review " (8th October, 1859, page 
 421) contains the following : — 
 
 " Scotland presents the spectacle of the most Puritanized and 
 most drunken community on the face of the earth. Nowhere 
 is the strict interpretation of the letter more popular, and no- 
 where are the free, liberal, and practical influences of the spirit 
 more disregarded. The Sabbath is kept, but the moral law is set 
 aside. 
 
 New York is about the most profligate city in the world ; in 
 Geneva religion is all but unknown, and in Glasgow, the sons of 
 the Covenanters are the most drunken population on the face of 
 the earth." 
 
 The " Times " states that from a Parliamentary 
 paper recently issued at the instance of Dr. Cameron, 
 in the year ending with the 30th of June, 1875, there 
 were in all 65,173 persons arrested for drunkenness in 
 Scotland (38,213 for being drunk and incapable, and 
 26,960 for being drunk and disorderly).^ On the 
 
 ' It has been stated that most of these were Irish. Whether 
 this is the case or not we do not know ; but even admitting that 
 the majority of those arrested were Irish, or descended from 
 Irish parents, we conclude that they must have become con- 
 
and Protestant Cotmtries. 227 
 
 <luestion of morality, a leading Presbyterian paper 
 called " The Scotsman " recently wrote as follows : — 
 
 " England is nearly twice and Scotland nearly thrice worse 
 than Ireland in the matter of morality. The proportion of 
 illegitimacy is very unequally distributed over Ireland, and the 
 inequalities are such as are rather humbling to us as Protestants, 
 and still more as Presbyterians and Scotchmen. 
 
 The division showing the lowest figure is the Western, being 
 substantially the province of Connaught, where about nineteen- 
 tvventieths of the population are Celtic and Catholics. 
 
 The division showing the highest proportion of illegitimacy 
 is the North-Eastern, which comprises or almost consists of the 
 province of Ulster, where the population is almost equally 
 divided between Protestant and Roman Catholic, and where the 
 great majority of the Protestants are of Scotch blood and of the 
 Presbyterian Church. 
 
 The sum of the whole matter is, that semi- Presbyterian and 
 semi- Scotch Ulster is fully three times more imjnoral than 
 wholly Popish and wholly Irish Connaught, which corresponds 
 with wonderful accuracy to the more general fact that Scotland 
 as a whole, is three times more immoral than Ireland as a whole. 
 There is a fact, whatever may be the proper deduction. There 
 is a text whatever may be the sermon. We only suggest that the 
 sermon should have a great deal about charity, self-examination, 
 and humility." 
 
 taminated by living amongst the Scotch. In any case we know 
 that the Irish in their own country, and under the influence of 
 their clergy, are in a very different condition. A Parliamentary 
 return (No. 437, 1878) affords the latest refutation to the theory 
 that the Irish are more drunken than the English and Scotch. 
 {See " Tablet," March i6th, 1878.) 
 
2 28 Relative Morality of Catholic 
 
 A few years ago a distinguished Protestant writer 
 published a work entitled " Memorandums made in 
 Ireland in the Autumn of 1852," in the course of which 
 he bears frequent and ungrudging testimony to the in- 
 fluence of the confessional as an agent of purity. The 
 writer was Dr. Forbes, one of Her Majesty's phy- 
 sicians. We transcribe some passages from his w^ork 
 which we find quoted in the April number of the 
 ■ " Dublin Review," pp. 437-8 : — 
 
 " At any rate," says Dr. Forbes, " the result of my inquiries is, 
 that whether right or wrong in a theological or rational point of 
 view, this instrument of confession is, among the Irish of the 
 humbler classes, a direct preservative against certain forms of 
 immorality at least " (vol. ii. p. 81). "Among other charges pre- 
 ferred against confession in Ireland and elsewhere is the facility 
 it affords for corrupting the female mind, and of its actually 
 leading to such corruption. So far from such corruption result- 
 ing from the confessional, it is the general belief in Ireland, a 
 belief expressed to me by many trustworthy men in all parts of 
 the country, both by Protestants as well as Catholics, that the 
 singular purity of female life among the lower classes there, is 
 in a considerable degree dependent on this very circumstance" 
 (p. 83). " With a view of testing as far as was practicable the 
 truth of the theory respecting the influence of confession on this 
 branch of morals, I have obtained through the courtesy of the 
 Poor Law Commissioners a return of the number of legitimate 
 and illegitimate children in the workhouses of each of the four 
 provinces of Ireland on a particular day, viz., 27th November, 
 1852. 
 
 It is curious to mark how strikingly the results there conveyed 
 
a7id Protestant Countries. 229 
 
 correspond with the confession theory ; the proportion of illegiti- 
 mate children coinciding almost exactly with the relative pro- 
 portions of the two religions in each province ; being large where 
 the Protestant element is large, and small where it is small" 
 •&C. &c. (p. 245). 
 
 While writing on this subject we may be allowed 
 to quote the testimony of another Protestant writer, 
 Mr. William Gilbert, who, in an article published in 
 ^'Christian Work," in May, 1864, states that — 
 
 " While under the guidance of their priests, Irish women as a 
 class enjoy, and with justice, a reputation for respectability of 
 conduct unsurpassed if equalled by any women in the world." 
 
 In Ireland cases of infanticide and baby-farming 
 are almost unknown, whilst in England and Scotland 
 scarcely a day passes by without the papers referring 
 to two or three such occurrences. 
 
 The facts we have adduced in these pages are 
 amply sufficient to demonstrate the fallacy of the 
 chain of arguments used by our opponents; but before 
 quitting the subject we will quote the illegitimate 
 births in the poor-houses of the British Isles as given 
 by Dr. Forbes : — 
 
 Ireland i illegitimate birth to 16*47 legitimate. 
 England i „ „ to 1-49 „ 
 
 Wales I „ „ to 0-46 „ 
 
 In Ireland the Catholic faith is an actual preserva- 
 
230 Relative Morality of Catholic 
 
 tive of private morality, for in Connaught there is 
 only I illegitimate birth in 23'53 legitimate, whilst 
 in the north of Ireland, which is a Puritan and Scotch 
 settlement, there is i illegitimate birth in y26 legi- 
 timate. The fact of Irish morality is proverbial, and 
 bears striking contrast to the character of its more 
 wealthy Protestant neighbours ; and though many 
 persons may assert that this morality is an idiosyn- 
 crasy of the national character, we have no hesitation 
 in affirming it to be the result of Catholic teaching 
 and loyalty to the Church of their ancestors. 
 
 A striking testimony to the truth of our remarks 
 has recently been witnessed. Not long ago an asser- 
 tion of immorality was made in an English newspaper^ 
 celebrated for its defence of Evangelical truth, against 
 Irish women in general, and the Irish Church in par^ 
 ticular, in the following words : — 
 
 " The much vaunted chastity of Irish girls is a myth. 
 
 In the rural districts of Ireland the priest is the seducer of the 
 parish, and the early improvident marriages of the young people 
 are encouraged by him to conceal his immorality. There is not, 
 and cannot be chastity where Popery reigns." 
 
 These observations drew forth from Lord Oran- 
 more a reply which we give ifi exte?iso : — 
 
 ' " The Rock," a Church of England Family Newspaper^ 
 Oct. 5th, 1877. 
 
a7id Protesta7it Cowitries. 231 
 
 " Sir, — A letter appears in your number of the 5th instant 
 
 headed ' Chastity of Irish Girls.* I believe there can be no more 
 
 uncompromising Protestant, no one more convinced of the evils 
 
 of the Roman Catholic system than I am. I have taken the 
 
 ' Rock ' since it was published, and admire its straightforward 
 
 advocacy of Protestant principles, and therefore I the more 
 
 regret that by some oversight a paragraph so calumnious and 
 
 untrue should find place in its columns. I have spent much of 
 
 my life in a Roman Catholic part of Ireland, and know well not 
 
 only that Irish girls are generally chaste, but that it is quite an 
 
 exception that Irish priests are (in this sense) immoral men ; 
 
 and yet this paragraph attributes to the whole body adultery with 
 
 malice aforethought and prepense. The admission of such a 
 
 paragraph into your journal cannot but bring discredit on the 
 
 good cause your journal so ably supports. 
 
 Oranmore. 
 Castle Mac Garrett, 
 
 Co. Mayo." 
 
 Such testimony as this in our favour, from one of 
 our strongest opponents, ought to convince every 
 reasonable man of the truth of our previous assertion 
 with reference to the morality of the Irish, even 
 should he refuse to believe in the morality of the 
 great mass of Catholics. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE REFORMATION IN CONNECTION WITH THE 
 DEVELOPMENT OF CIVIL LIBERTIES. 
 
 The Reformation wherever it has prevailed has constituted a 
 State Church, and dealt a blow to civil liberty — Civil and 
 political liberty in those countries in which the Reformation 
 did not succeed in establishing a State Church — In those 
 countries where large numbers remained Catholics — Where 
 they branched off into separate bodies — Civil liberty of old 
 standing amongst Catholic nations — Absolutism a modern 
 invention— The Catholic Church alone capable of resisting 
 the dissolving element contained in civil liberty — Practical 
 proofs. 
 
 HE assertion is frequently made that the 
 Reformation is conducive to the develop- 
 ment of civil liberty, and that Catholi- 
 cism inevitably leads to despotism and 
 anarchy. People declare that the representative 
 system is the form of government natural to Pro- 
 
The Reformatio7i and Civil Liberties. 233 
 
 testant countries, whilst Catholics are born to abso- 
 lutism. 
 
 Martin, Marshall, and others have written learned 
 works upon the subject which ably demonstrate the 
 following propositions : — 
 
 istly. Wherever the Reformation has prevailed a 
 State Church has been constituted, and a blow has 
 been dealt at civil liberty which has compelled the 
 nation to retrograde instead of advancing in the path 
 of political progress. 
 
 2ndly. Civil and political liberties have flourished 
 relatively only in the countries wherein the leaders of 
 the Reformation did not succeed in making a State 
 Church, and in those of whom a great portion of the 
 nation remained Catholic, or formed themselves into 
 separate religious bodies. 
 
 3rdly. Civil liberty is of old standing amongst Ca- 
 thohc nations, and absolutism is a modern abuse of 
 power. 
 
 4thly. The Catholic Church can alone, in the midst 
 of a nation, offer resistance, in virtue of its religion 
 and by means of its worship, to the dissolving ele- 
 ments contained in civil liberty — which gives expres- 
 sion to every conceivable opinion, and tolerates every 
 imaginable form of worship. 
 
234 The Reformation in connectio7z with 
 
 • 
 Religious unity maintained by political institutions 
 
 is an appreciable benefit, and the Catholic Church has 
 never ceased to proclaim this truth ; but when Pro- 
 testants establish State Churches they place them- 
 selves in open contradiction with the fundamental 
 principles of their religious rebellion. Amongst Pro- 
 testants a State Church means the complete sub- 
 jection of the Church to the State, upon which the 
 Church becomes but the instrument of the State ; 
 whereas in Catholic teaching religious unity is not 
 regarded as a temporal means of government, but as 
 a directing principle superior to the State. The An- 
 glican Church, for instance, is a Church created by 
 the State, supported by the State, and kept up for 
 purposes of the State.' It is only known in lands 
 where English people are to be found, is as purely 
 English as if heaven were a British colony, and as 
 completely national as if Christ and His Apostles had 
 lived in England and taught only what the English 
 
 ^ There are doubtless large numbers of clergy and laity in the 
 Anglican communion who would repudiate this idea, but it is 
 one that prevails very extensively amongst men of letters, and 
 includes many of the bishops and dignitaries and a large pro- 
 portion of laymen in the present day, just as it did in the seven- 
 teenth and sixteenth centuries. 
 
the Development of Civil Liberties. 235 
 
 Government thought suitable for them to teach. Lord 
 Macaulay ^ writes thus : — 
 
 " The Church of England existed for England alone ; it was 
 an institution as purely local as the Court of Common Pleas, 
 and was utterly without machinery for foreign operations. The 
 Church of Scotland existed for Scotland alone, and no one at 
 Lambeth or Edinburgh troubled themselves about what was 
 doing in Poland or Bavaria. 
 
 The spiritual force of Protestantism was a local militia. In 
 England the gaols were filled with men who did not exactly 
 agree with the Court on all points of discipline and doctrine." 
 
 Before the sixteenth century civil tolerance in 
 matters of religion was unknown in European politics, 
 except in Rome, where Judaism was always permitted 
 by the authorities from the time of the fall of the 
 Roman Empire. 
 
 Outside the Universal Church there can only exist 
 national and particular Churches, confined to those 
 who speak the same language or practise the same 
 customs, and such Churches are invariably intolerant 
 in their political essence. From the time of the coro- 
 nation of Charles the Great in Rome, Europe was re- 
 garded as a Christian republic, practising the worship 
 of the Universal Church, and there was no question 
 
 1 U' 
 
 Critical and Historical Essays," by Lord Macaulay. 
 
236 The Reformation in co7inection with 
 
 of introducing any other worship without overthrow- 
 ing the very constitution of the empire. 
 
 The Reformation was effected in the name of 
 liberty of conscience, but it has been in reality the 
 most cruel enemy of liberty, and wherever Lutheran- 
 ism or Calvinism has secured a footing, there liberty 
 of conscience has been suppressed. 
 
 In England and Ireland, Denmark and Sweden, in 
 Brandenbourg and Geneva, the various Reformers 
 looked upon the oppression of the Catholic Church 
 and its destruction as the practical conclusion of their 
 teaching, and inflicted the pain of death on those 
 who practised its doctrines, whilst they maltreated the 
 numerous Protestant sects who ventured to differ from 
 themselves. 
 
 Melancthon, the gentlest of the Reformers of that 
 epoch, declared that the Anabaptists should expiate 
 their doctrines by their blood, and called for corporal 
 punishment on the plea that it is the duty of the 
 secular power to announce the Divine law, and to 
 enforce its observation. 
 
 Calvin told the Protector Somerset that it was his 
 duty to exterminate by the sword all persons who 
 should oppose the establishment of the Protestant 
 religion. 
 
the Development of Civil Liberties. 237 
 
 According to this apostle of " civil tolerance," the 
 punishment of death was desirable, upon the principle 
 that the authority of the Sovereign over the Church 
 cannot be disregarded, without an attempt being 
 directed thereby against the power of the Crown, 
 established by Divine right. 
 
 Beza, the friend of Calvin, asserted that the Anti- 
 Trinitarians ought to be hanged without mercy, even if 
 they should retract their belief. 
 
 Burleigh, the Minister of Queen Elizabeth, held as 
 a principle that the security of the State would be 
 endangered if two forms of religion were tolerated. 
 
 Even the Chancellor Bacon thought that a govern- 
 ment had reached the ultimate limits of tolerance 
 when it was content with exacting an external adhe- 
 sion to the established religion of the country, without 
 penetrating to the conscience. 
 
 It is impossible for us to criticize with too great 
 severity the hypocrisy of the authors of a religious 
 revolution, professedly undertaken for the purpose of 
 establishing a reign of freedom for the human mind. 
 
 Catholics were at least faithful to the political 
 traditions of their country and the naturally intolerant 
 principles of their faith Vv-hen they defended them- 
 selves, in preventing by the aid of the civil power 
 
238 The Reformation in co7inection with 
 
 the introduction of heresy ; but the case assumes an 
 entirely different aspect when Protestants act in a 
 similar way. 
 
 With Catholicism, which is based on the principle of 
 absolute certainty, against which it is theoretically 
 impossible to suppose any right, intolerance, however 
 much it may be deemed worthy of blame, cannot be 
 styled illogical, whilst with those whose principle is 
 freedom of opinion and private judgment it is not only 
 bad in itself, but unreasonable and contrary to their 
 own premises. 
 
 Some of the Reformers went so far as to contest 
 the right of sovereignty to those princes who did not 
 admit their heresies, and declared that their deposi- 
 tion would be lawful and necessary. Knox, the great 
 Scotch Reformer, made himself very remarkable in 
 the application of this doctrine. Luther stirred up the 
 peasantry against their rulers, in a writing in which 
 he proclaims with loud voice the liberties of the 
 Gospel. 
 
 When the war of the peasants threatened the ex- 
 istence of the Protestant principalities, the protectors 
 of Luther begged him to intervene, whereupon he ful- 
 minated another writing to curse the peasants for 
 having so well put into execution the conclusions of 
 
the Development of Civil Liberties. 239 
 
 his first work. These two contradictory statements 
 are worthy of being placed by the side of the famous 
 dispensation that was granted to cover the bigamy of 
 the Landgrave of Hesse. 
 
 After these few general considerations, let us cast 
 a rapid glance over the various Protestant nations and 
 the civil institutions which their religious novelties 
 inspire. 
 
 In Sweden we find an inconceivable amount of 
 intolerance and immorality. One law ordained that 
 every man who remained more than a year out of 
 the communion of the national Established Church 
 should be exiled from the country ; another ordained 
 that anyone who should make use of expressions (in 
 theological matters) calculated to shock the national 
 Church and refuse to retract them, should suffer exile. 
 
 The King is still considered the supreme sovereign 
 and inspector, as well as the earthly master of the 
 Church : he unites in his person the highest temporal 
 and spiritual power. 
 
 His authority over the Church is administered by 
 the Royal Chancellorship, which has for its president 
 the Minister of Public Affairs. 
 
 Gustavus Wasa informed the inhabitants of Helsing- 
 land that if they refused to become Lutherans at his 
 
240 The Reformation in connection with 
 
 command he would order an opening to be cut in the 
 ice on the Lake of Deel and have them all drowned. 
 
 The sword, the prison, exile, and exorbitant fines 
 have always been regarded in Sweden as practices of 
 civil liberty and toleration. 
 
 Charles IX. and his son Gustavus Adolphus be- 
 headed the Catholics. At the close of the seventeenth 
 century and the beginning of the eighteenth, when 
 Ulstadius, Schaefer, Ulhagius, and Molin rejected the 
 doctrine of mere justification by faith, and taught the 
 necessity of good works, the first was condemned to 
 a prison, in which he languished for the space of thirty 
 years, reflecting upon the tolerance of the Swedish 
 Church ; the second and third were put to death, and 
 the latter was exiled from the country. 
 
 The introduction of Protestantism into the northern 
 part of Europe was organized by a coalition of laymen 
 who coveted the possession of the goods of the Church, 
 of Kings, and noblemen who desired to exercise un- 
 restrained power, of regulars weary of their rule of 
 continence and fasting, and of seculars who were 
 desirous of legalizing their immorality. 
 
 The Reformation should be studied, in the places 
 where it prevailed, by the light of the history of the 
 sixteenth century, and with the knowledge and under- 
 
the Development of Civil Liberties, 241 
 
 standing of ancient institutions and modern progress. 
 The masses of the people were in every instance de- 
 ceived. In Sweden, Gustavus Wasa ahvays refused to 
 admit that he was introducing new doctrines, and fifty 
 years after the official introduction of Lutheranism 
 many of the people still imagined that they were 
 Catholics. It was only by slow degrees that the 
 masses became conscious that they were in a Lutheran 
 country. 
 
 The Protestant Church in Sweden began as an in- 
 strument of government and police administration — 
 " an appendage," according to the words of the Swedish 
 historian Geijer, ''to the military and civil authorities," 
 and it remains to this day an instrument of tyranny 
 and oppression. 
 
 Although theoretically the royal power was con- 
 stituted conformably to the principles of the Renais- 
 sance and the Apostles of the Reformation, on an 
 absolute basis, it was practically made subservient to 
 the wishes of the large class of powerful nobles. 
 Sweden is still asleep, and if it were not for Linneus, 
 Berzelius, and Geijer would at the present day be as 
 little known as Maracaibo. Such is the effect of 
 Protestantism, after a trial of three hundred years in 
 the soil of the holy Eric IX., and no one can possibly 
 
 R 
 
242 The Reformation in co7inectio7i with 
 
 claim for Sweden a place in the picture of civil 
 liberty. 
 
 Denmark is little better. Molesworth, who was 
 thoroughly acquainted with the history of Protes- 
 tantism in the north of Europe, wrote thus as early 
 as the year 1692 : — 
 
 " The Roman Catholic rehgion with its supreme head in Rome 
 maintains perpetual opposition to the doctrine of unlimited poli- 
 tical power, but the Lutherans are on the contrary invariably- 
 subject to the State, and reduced to the condition of servitude. 
 From the time that the people of Northern Europe exchanged 
 their old religion for a better one, they may be considered as 
 having lost their liberty." 
 
 In Denmark Lutheranism was completely triumphant, 
 and what was the result t Barthold, a Protestant his- 
 torian of Berlin, tells it in these words : — 
 
 " The peasant was again reduced to a state of serfdom, the 
 citizen was deprived of every means of defence, and sank under 
 the weight of civil and military oppression. 
 
 The King and the nobles shared the sovereignty, and the 
 masses of the people, and even the children of the clergy became 
 mere serfs." 
 
 The nobility appropriated to themselves not only the 
 revenues of the Church, but also the free-holdings of 
 the peasants. 
 
 Allen, in his " History of Denmark," which has 
 
the Development of Civil Liberties. 243 
 
 been recognized by the Academy of Copenhagen as 
 the best work on the subject, writes thus : — 
 
 " The tenants of the great ecclesiastical domains were com- 
 pelled to exchange the gentle administration of the clergy for the 
 crushing despotism of the nobles. Fines and other hardships 
 were arbitrarily multiplied, and the peasants were treated with 
 severity. Agriculture, which was thus forcibly abandoned, fell 
 below the level that it had attained during the Middle Ages. 
 The population decreased in numbers, and the country was 
 covered with deserted habitations." 
 
 The civil rights of the clergy and middle classes 
 were in their turn attacked, and eight or nine hundred 
 nobles reigned supreme over a country which had 
 rejected the apostolic liberty of the Church. Chris- 
 tian IV. (1 588-1648) made an attempt to break down 
 this wall of absolutism, but without success. 
 
 Frederick III. and his successors proclaimed them- 
 selves as absolute Sovereigns. A law was passed In 
 the year 1665 which declared It desirable that the 
 King should be bound by no oath or obligation, but 
 that his authority should be paramount. Let anyone 
 ■contrast these proceedings with the oath taken by the 
 Catholic Kings of Aragon before the period of the 
 Renaissance and the obligations incurred by the Kings 
 of Castile, and consider In what way the Reformation 
 may be regarded as a return to civil liberty. 
 
244 '^^^^ Refo7'ination in comtection with 
 
 Let them examine the charters of the Basque 
 Countries and of Flanders, and see whether their 
 forefathers were more ignorant of the principles of 
 true liberty than themselves. 
 
 In 1702 Frederick VI. abolished serfdom to replace 
 it by another form of tyranny, that of attaching the 
 peasant to the soil. Schools were few, and in 1766 it 
 may be said that primary instruction was nil. At the 
 close of the eighteenth century scarcely one person in 
 twenty could read, and it was not until the year 1805. 
 that personal liberty was for the first time conceded 
 to 20,000 families of serfs. In the year 17 14 the 
 Bishops of Norway addressed the following petition to 
 King Frederick IV., which shows to what a pitch of 
 degradation the kingdom had sunk. They say : " With 
 the exception of a small number of people, between 
 ourselves and our pagan ancestors there is the single 
 difference that we bear the name of Christians." 
 
 The Provincial Diet which was re-established by 
 Frederick VI. did not restrain the absolutism of 
 royalty, but acted in a subservient spirit of fear. In 
 the year 1839 Laing, in his ''Notes of a Traveller," 
 says : — 
 
 " Since the Danes are completely passive as regards politics, 
 and never raise their voices to discuss their own affairs, they 
 
the Development of Civil Liberties. 245 
 
 remain, in spite of the large number of excellent ordonnances 
 decreed by the government, in the same condition as they were 
 in 1660. 
 
 They are two centuries behind such nations as the Scotch, the 
 Dutch, and the Belgians, in comparison with whom they maybe 
 placed as regards their population and general position." 
 
 In Mecklenburg serfdom was only abolished in the 
 year 1829 ; in Pomerania the States-General were 
 suppressed almost immediately after the accession of 
 the first Protestant Duke ; and in Hanover and Bruns- 
 wick the States-General disappeared before the ab- 
 solutism of their respective sovereigns, where history 
 would find little to record were it not for the great 
 memory of Leibnitz. Let us see how civil liberty 
 Avas interpreted in the Electorate of Brandenbourg. 
 
 The reader will doubtless remember how the prin- 
 ciples of the Reformers were but insensibly instilled 
 amongst the people, and how Prussia was torn from 
 the Teutonic order that possessed it. 
 
 During the whole of the sixteenth century a certain 
 hesitation is manifest among the princes of Hohen- 
 zollern in their conduct towards their subjects. The 
 weak and vacillating Duke Albert, the Elector 
 Joachim, and his son George alike needed the assis- 
 tance of the States-General by reason of their mis- 
 deeds. 
 
246 The Refomnation in connection with 
 
 From the beginning of the seventeenth century the 
 convocation of the States was suspended, and from 
 the year 1656 no further Diet was summoned. Whilst 
 the French were devastating the Palatinate, according 
 to the military custom of that period, the great Elector 
 laid waste the administration of his own States. The 
 government of Prussia was in no respect different 
 from that of Sweden or Denmark, either as regards its 
 despotism or its brutality. 
 
 According to the words of the historian Stenzel, 
 Prussia was on the high road to becoming one of 
 those Asiatic States wherein despotism stifles all that 
 is noble and beautiful. 
 
 Military pursuits and the passions of the chase were 
 the two ideas of the sovereign which the nation was 
 called upon to countenance and provide for — pur- 
 suits which exhausted its resources and its life. The 
 peasants were ground down under a crushing servi- 
 tude as galling as it was despotic. 
 
 Frederick William I. (171 3-1740) carried out the 
 spirit of absolutism to the minutest details. Under 
 his ignoble reign the Protestant clergy were given less 
 consideration than the lowest rank of officers in the 
 army. 
 
 No writer with any regard for truth can put for- 
 
the Development of Civil Libei^ties, 247 
 
 ward Frederick II. as a protector of civil liberty. 
 Toellner quotes a writing^ of his in which this disciple 
 of Voltaire reveals the fact that the principal cause of 
 his contempt for the Christian religion lay in the 
 disgust he felt for ecclesiastical history as put before 
 him by the Protestants. He saw nought in it but a 
 stage representation played by mischief-makers and 
 hypocrites at the expense of the masses, who were 
 made their dupes and victims. 
 
 Carlyle, in his celebrated work on Frederick the 
 Great, draws a striking picture of the open dislike 
 that monarch displayed for all the primary doctrines 
 of the Reformation, and the despotic and tyrannical 
 disposition of his character. If men carefully observe 
 what is passing before their eyes in the present day 
 in Italy, France, Belgium, and other countries, they 
 must be struck with the fact that in every case the 
 various Liberal governments that have exercised 
 power have curtailed civil liberty, and deprived large 
 numbers of those for whom they legislate of their 
 most sacred and inviolable rights. Unless ** civil 
 liberty" is made to consist in mere hatred of, and 
 
 * Preface of the work entitled " Abridgment of Fleury's 
 Ecclesiastical History," Berne, 1869. M. de Prades was the 
 author of the work, and Frederick II. wrote the preface. 
 
248 The Reformation in connection with 
 
 declamation against the Catholic Church, it is evi- 
 dent that from the departure of the Duke of Alva 
 down to the French Revolution of 1789, Belgium 
 enjoyed much more freedom than the Low Countries, 
 which were Calvinist. The recent works of Professor 
 Poullet, of Louvain, throw floods of light on this point 
 of history. 
 
 Niebuhr, the Protestant historian, declares that the 
 Reformed Church in Holland was grossly tyrannical, 
 and that it cannot be lauded either for intellect or 
 good judgment ; also that Calvinism everywhere alike, 
 whether in Holland, Scotland, or Geneva, manifested 
 a thirst for blood equivalent at least to that of the 
 Inquisition, and has in no one instance exhibited the 
 merits of Catholicism. 
 
 The absolutism of the House of Orange was im- 
 peded by the firm adhesion of a large portion of the 
 populace to the Catholic Church, and by the formation 
 of numerous dissident sects. The Catholics, deprived 
 of all political rights, served as a passive means to 
 render impossible the omnipotence of the dominant 
 Church. 
 
 Nevertheless, with regard to civil liberties, Holland 
 presents an aspect more consoling than that of any 
 other Protestant country. Calvinism was the religion 
 
the Development of Civil Liberties. 249 
 
 of the State, but the States-General guaranteed, at 
 different epochs and in different degrees, a certain 
 amount of Hberty towards such dissident sects as 
 Armenians, Lutherans, and Mennonites, that had 
 come from other parts. Catholicism alone, though it 
 embraced two-fifths of the population, was mercilessly 
 oppressed until the present generation. The States- 
 General protected Spinosa and Bayle, though they 
 proscribed the religious liberties of the co-religionists 
 of Fenelon and Malebranche. 
 
 The worst productions of the literature of the 
 eighteenth century were allowed to circulate in 
 Holland, and liberty of the press was practically 
 alone denied to Catholics. 
 
 England, under Elizabeth, furnishes a most striking 
 example of the inauguration of liberty by the Pro- 
 testant Reformation. . In this reign not only the 
 episcopal office, but also ecclesiastical doctrine was 
 subjected to the will of the sovereign. 
 
 Hallam^ writes thus of the Anglican Church in 
 1566: "The novel theory of ecclesiastical authority 
 resolved all its spiritual as well as temporal powers 
 into the royal supremacy," a statement which is con- 
 firmed by English lawyers. Blackstone, for instance, 
 ' Hallam's " Constitutional Histor}^," vol. i. p. loo. 
 
250 The Reformation in connection with 
 
 says : " The authority heretofore exercised by the 
 Pope is now annexed to the Crown by the statutes 
 of Henry VIII., Edward, and Elizabeth."^ 
 
 The Anglican Church is in complete subjection to 
 the State. Such are the words of the leading ecclesi- 
 astical papers in England of the present day — words 
 whiqh have been amply verified by recent legislation. 
 The " Public Worship Regulation Act " is an example 
 of this, an Act hurried through a Parliament com- 
 posed of men of every shade of belief, in one session, 
 and then forced upon a body of clergy who were 
 certainly not in favour of it. It is worthy of notice 
 also, that Convocation, which may in a certain sense 
 be considered as the mouthpiece of the Anglican 
 clergy, was not even consulted on the matter. 
 
 The tolerant legislation for Ireland is so well known 
 that in a short work like the present it is unnecessary 
 to dwell much on it, but for the benefit of those who 
 are under the delusion that Protestantism produces 
 civil liberty we will quote a few of the penal laws, 
 which prove the fact that children were torn away 
 from their parents' protection, priests were hung or 
 exiled, and those who refused to conform to the 
 wishes of the British Government were made serfs in 
 
 ' Blackstone's "Commentaries." vol. iii. p. 67. 
 
the Development of Civil Liberties, 251 
 
 their own land. In England for three hundred years 
 CathoHcs were hunted like wild beasts, and the punish- 
 ment of death was inflicted on a priest for saying the 
 Mass. 
 
 In the year 1695 the following laws were en- 
 acted : — 
 
 1. The Catholic Peers were deprived of their right 
 to sit in Parliament. 
 
 2. Catholic gentlemen were forbidden to be elected 
 as members of Parliament. 
 
 3. Catholics were denied the liberty of voting, and 
 were excluded from all offices of trust and all re- 
 munerative employment. 
 
 4. They were fined £60 a month for absence from 
 Protestant worship. 
 
 5. They were forbidden to travel five miles from 
 their houses, to keep arms, to maintain suits at law, 
 or to be guardians or executors. 
 
 6. Any four justices of the peace could, without 
 further trial, banish any man for life if he refused to 
 attend the Protestant service. 
 
 7. Any two justices of the peace could call any 
 man over sixteen before them, and if he refused to 
 abjure the Catholic religion, could bestow his property 
 on the next of kin. 
 
252 The Reformation in connectio7i with 
 
 8. No Catholic could employ a Catholic school- 
 master to educate his children ; and if he sent his 
 child abroad for education he was subject to a fine of 
 £\QOy and the child could not inherit any property in 
 England or Ireland. 
 
 9. Any Catholic priest who came to the country 
 might be hanged. 
 
 10. Any Protestant suspecting any other Protestant 
 of holding property in trust for a Catholic might file 
 a bill against the suspected trustee and take the 
 estate from him. 
 
 11. Any Protestant seeing a Catholic tenant-at-will 
 on a farm which, in his opinion, yielded one-third 
 more than the yearly rent, might enter on that farm, 
 and, by simply swearing to the fact, take posses- 
 sion. 
 
 12. Any Protestant might take away the horse of a 
 Catholic, no matter how valuable, by simply paying 
 him £^. 
 
 13. Horses and waggons belonging to Catholics 
 were in all cases to be seized for the use of the 
 Militia. 
 
 14. Any Catholic gentleman's child who became a 
 Protestant could at once take possession of his father's 
 property. 
 
the Development of Civil Liberties. 253 
 
 The 13th of Charles IL, commonly called "The 
 Corporation Act," excluded Catholics from offices in 
 cities and corporations. 
 
 The 25th Charles II. , commonly called "The Test 
 Act," excluded them from all civil and military 
 offices. 
 
 The 30th Charles II. prevented them from taking 
 part in the legislation of the country. 
 
 An Act of William and Mary prevented the use of 
 the Parliamentary franchise. 
 
 The horrors of the penal code were slightly relaxed 
 in 1778, when American agitation and English fear 
 permitted Catholics to hold property on leases for 
 lives, but still the vast majority of the nation was 
 excluded from the franchises, offices, and honours of 
 the State, not on account of any moral or political 
 delinquency, but merely on account of its religion. 
 The whole history of the persecutions which Catholics 
 have endured at the hands of Protestants of every 
 denomination is one of the most curious phases of 
 human perversity that the philosopher can find to 
 study. 
 
 The Rev. Dr. Leland, a Protestant minister, writes 
 as follows^ on the plantation of Ulster, which James I. 
 
 ' Leland, book iv. chap. 8. 
 
2 54 ^^^^ Reformation in co7inection with 
 
 and his successor not only devised, but carried into 
 
 effect : — 
 
 " They obtained commissions of inquiry into defective titles 
 and grants of concealed lands and rents belonging to the Crown, 
 the great benefit of which was to accrue to the projector, whilst 
 the King was contented with an inconsiderable proportion of the 
 concealment, or a small advance of rent. 
 
 Discoverers were ever^-where busily employed in finding out 
 flaws in men's titles to their estates. The old pipe-rells were 
 searched to find the original rents with which they had been 
 charged, the patent rolls in the Tower of London were ransacked 
 for the ancient grants, no means of industry or devices of craft 
 were left untried to force the possessors to accept of new grants 
 at an advanced rent. In general men were either conscious of 
 defects in their titles, or alarmed at the trouble and expense of a 
 contest with the Crown, or fearful of the issue of such a contest 
 at a time and in a country where the prerogative was highly 
 strained and strenuously supported by the judges. There are 
 not wanting proofs of the most iniquitous practices of hardened 
 cruelty, of vile perjury, and scandalous subornation, employed 
 to despoil the fair and unoffending proprietor of his inheritance." 
 
 Unheard-of confiscations were made in the northern 
 parts, upon grounds of plots and conspiracies never 
 proved upon their supposed authors. The original 
 scheme of depopulation was never lost sight of, and a 
 regular series of operations was carried on by special 
 commissions and inquisitions, first under pretence of 
 tenures and then of titles in the Crown, until the 
 original inhabitants were almost completely extermi- 
 
'the Development of Civil Liber^ties. 255 
 
 nated. Parliament passed a law vesting the entire land 
 of six counties in the Crown, the property of Irish- 
 men, and the King immediately distributed upwards 
 of 385,000 acres to his followers.^ There were three 
 divisions made of the spoils — first, to English and 
 Scotch, who were to plant their portions of territory 
 with English and Scotch tenants ; secondly, to servi- 
 tors in Ireland — that is, to persons employed under 
 the Government, who might take English or Irish 
 tenants at their choice ; thirdly, to the natives of those 
 countries, who were to be freeholders. Catholics and 
 persons of Irish descent, who were known by the 
 name of " mere Irish," were altogether excluded from 
 this part of the country. 
 
 Such was the Plantation of Ulster, and, to show 
 the spirit in which it was made, we give the following 
 " Articles," extracted from the orders and conditions 
 of the Plantation of Ulster : — 
 
 (7.) " The said undertakers, their heirs and assigns, shall not 
 alien or demise their portions, or any part thereof, to the mere 
 Irish, or to such persons as will not take the oath which the 
 said undertakers are bound to take by the said article, and to 
 that end a proviso shall be inserted in the letters patent." 
 
 (8.) " The said undertakers shall not alien their portions during 
 five years next after the date of their letters patent, but in this 
 
 * Leland, book iv. chap. 8. 
 
256 The Reformation in eonneetion with 
 
 manner — viz., one third part in fee farm," &:c. " But after the said 
 five years they shall be at liberty to alien to all persons except 
 the mere Irish," (Harris's " Hibernica," p. 66.) 
 
 The documents here cited give but a faint idea of 
 the extreme misery created by this plantation. The 
 administration of the law was quite consistent with 
 the temper of the times, and the Protestant Bishop 
 Burnet does not hesitate to denounce the partiality 
 and injustice that were exhibited.^ 
 
 Scotland furnishes us with an example of a country 
 entirely given up to the spirit of intolerance. Lord 
 Clarendon, speaking of the Scotch in 1660, says : 
 " Their whole religion consists in hatred of popery." 
 Few *' apostles of tolerance " pushed a hatred of truth 
 to such a pitch as John Knox, who declared that it 
 rightly appertained to the civil power to regulate 
 everything connected with religion. He issued a 
 warrant of death against anyone who should cele- 
 brate the holy sacrifice of the Mass twice. An eccle- 
 siastical tyranny was established under his direction 
 of which it is now hardly possible to form a concep- 
 tion. In Chambers's " Domestic Annals" we find the 
 statement that the private life of each individual was 
 subjected to investigation like that exercised in the 
 
 East. 
 
 ' Bishop Burnet's " Life of Bishop Bedell." 
 
the Development of Civil Liberties. 257 
 
 The despotism exercised by the ruling authorities 
 in Scotland exceeded that in Geneva, the birthplace 
 of Calvinism and centre of revolutionary intrigue. 
 
 In 17 1 3, Parliament, aided by the Crown, com- 
 pelled the Scotch Calvinists to tolerate the intro- 
 duction of an Episcopal Church. The year 1735 
 marks the first approach to any kind of liberty in 
 Scotland, and then for the first time the poor High- 
 landers who had remained steadfast to the Catholic 
 Church obtained permission to come down from their 
 mountainous abodes in order to practise the religion 
 of their ancestors, and to teach England the spiritual 
 power of the*faith of Edward the Confessor. 
 
 The anarchy of the various Protestant denomina- 
 tions of the United States of America is well known, 
 but we will recall for some of our readers the me- 
 morable fact that since the era of Luther the only 
 sincere attempt to establish a system of religious 
 liberty previous to Washington was made by the 
 Catholics. 
 
 As we have mentioned in a previous chapter, Mary- 
 land was founded by Lord Baltimore as a refuge for 
 persons of every religious belief, and the fundamental 
 principle was laid down that there should be perfect 
 liberty for all, 
 
 S 
 
258 The Reformatio7i in connecli07i with 
 
 The Puritan party, the descendants of those who 
 loudly preached the right of private judgment and 
 liberty of conscience, devastated this noble territory 
 and destroyed every trace of its former freedom. 
 
 In a study so brief as this we cannot do more than 
 point out what is most important, but we think that 
 what we have pointed out is amply sufficient to prove 
 the correctness of our original propositions — viz., that 
 Protestantism has destroyed civil liberty wherever it 
 has gained the ascendency, and that politically it has 
 produced a retrograde movement in the nations who 
 have been subjected to its influence. In Catholic 
 nations, on the contrary, liberty is of Md standing, 
 and absolutism is completely modern. 
 
 England is a living witness of this statement, and 
 England is the country which in the present day gives 
 the clearest idea of what the nations of Europe would 
 have been if Protestantism and the Pagan liberalism 
 of the Renaissance had not stifled in them the growth 
 of institutions dating from the thirteenth century. 
 
 Every civil liberty except that of worship, which 
 dates only from our own time, existed in Great Britain 
 previous to the Reformation, and Great Britain alone 
 of European nations may be said to have escaped the 
 effects of the Renaissance. Although Great Britain 
 
the Developmeiit of Civil Liberties. 259 
 
 severed itself from the outward unity of the Church, 
 she did it apparently in a manner not sufficiently 
 complete to satisfy the Neo-Protestant school of 
 modern liberals. 
 
 The English episcopal system is in its present 
 form the denial of the fundamental principle of Pro- 
 testantism. 
 
 Nearly all the fruitful undertakings of Englishmen 
 date from Catholic times, and are essentially Catholic, 
 and every danger that England carries within her 
 bosom arises from the convulsions of the religious 
 revolution brought about by Henry VIII. France, 
 Spain, Austria, Portugal, and Italy escaped the con- 
 sequences of the Reformation to fall into the gene- 
 rative errors of the Renaissance which produced 
 Csesarism, or its modern form of irreligious radical- 
 ism and infidelity. Their misfortune was not so great 
 as that of the nations that became Protestant, but 
 their suffering has nevertheless been long and serious. 
 
 Catholic nations, to become free again, require 
 " the liberty of the children of God," the liberty that 
 permits them the free and unrestrained exercise of 
 their religion, and the civil right to put forth publicly 
 its worship and its doctrines. 
 
 Protestant nations can only become free by ceasing 
 
26o The Re/ornialion in connection with 
 
 to be Protestant and forfeiting the illusory promises 
 of the Reformation. This double phenomenon is very 
 clearly discernible in our day. 
 
 Ubi Petrtis, ibi ecclesia. In the political language 
 of the day we might translate these well-known words 
 thus : " Where the Pope is, there is liberty." 
 
 Outside of Christianity there can be no real civil 
 liberty ; the liberty that preceded it was based upon 
 slavery, which Aristotle, the prince of Anti-Christian 
 philosophy, justified from a rational point of view. 
 
 Christian truth in its integrity is only to be found 
 
 in the Universal Church, and without this truth there 
 
 is no genuine liberty. 
 
 " Cognoscetis veritatem et Veritas liberavit vos.'^' — "You know 
 the truth, and truth shall make you free." 
 
 If men would carry their intellects a step beyond 
 their miserable differences on questions of persons 
 and distinctions of words, and study with care and 
 diligence the history of the Universal Church from 
 the martyrdom of St. Peter down to the present day, 
 they would realize the truth of our assertion that the 
 Church has always been the guardian and protector 
 of true liberty. 
 
 During the past eighteen centuries the Church 
 Catholic Apostolic and Roman has been opposed by 
 
the Developnie7it of Civil Liberties. 261 
 
 all the errors which the spirit of evil is capable of 
 fomenting ; it has been triumphant over all, from the 
 time of the Jews who stoned St. Stephen down to the 
 year 1871, when the Communists of Paris butchered 
 the Archbishop of Paris and scores of the clergy in 
 cold blood. 
 
 That the gates of hell have not prevailed and can- 
 not prevail against the Church of Peter is a fact which 
 all Catholics admit with certainty ; but it may not 
 be useless to recount for the benefit of others a few 
 historical events to demonstrate the truth of it in the 
 past. 
 
 The distinction of the two powers (temporal and 
 spiritual) in scholastic language, and the source of 
 civil liberty were revealed to mankind by the Gospel, 
 and were completely unknown to paganism. The 
 Christians, more instructed and more humble of spirit, 
 knew through the means of faith that this distinction 
 of the two powers was to be henceforth the condition 
 of social life, and the Christians of the present day 
 entertain no doubt but that it will remain until the 
 consummation of time, until the day when all earthly 
 distinctions will be removed to make way for a truth 
 eternally one. 
 
 But as many may doubt, we purpose to prove by 
 
262 The Reformation in connection with 
 
 the outward history of the -Church that she alone has 
 been able to maintain, side by side with the purity of 
 faith in Christ Jesus, the complete integrity of civil 
 liberty. 
 
 When St. Peter, the fisherman of Galilee, arrived in 
 Rome, which he calls Babylon (i Peter v. 13), the 
 Roman Empire was in the might of its power, and 
 offered to the world a spectacle of corruption and an 
 amount of unparalleled despotism that would horrify 
 our contemporaries. The works of Tacitus and Juve- 
 nal give evidence of that which the early Christians 
 had to undergo, and we their descendants possess 
 their living history in the Acts of the Martyrs. 
 
 From the crucifixion of the first Bishop of Rome, 
 on the Vatican mount, until the proclamation of the 
 edict of universal tolerance published by Constantine 
 in 313, the blood of Catholics flowed to expiate the 
 infamies of the ancient world. Civil liberty issued 
 forth from the catacombs, and the words of Julian the 
 Apostate, '* Galilean, thou hast conquered," convey 
 the expression of unwilling testimony in their favour. 
 
 Then followed the invasions of the barbaric hordes, 
 and by whom was their destructive wave arrested } 
 Was it by the mighty Roman Empire or the Church ; 
 was it by the sons of Theodosius or by Pope Leo ? 
 
the Development of Civil Liberties, 263 
 
 When the Roman Empire of the West disappeared, 
 in the year 476, in the cradle of a child, Romulus 
 Augustulus, the Roman Church had already brought 
 to the savage tribes of the north of Europe the torch 
 of faith, the only true light of civil society. 
 
 " Christians must not overthrow error by the use of 
 violence or constraint, but by persuasion, instruction, 
 love, and charity." Such are the words of the great 
 St. John of Chrysostom. 
 
 From the reign of Pope Gregory the Great to that 
 of Nicholas the Great, this work of spiritual sanctifi- 
 cation and civil culture continued without interruption. 
 St. Gregory was the civilizer of England, and St. 
 Nicholas sent St. Anascharius to be the Apostle of 
 Northern Europe. 
 
 During the first nine centuries the Arians, the Mani- 
 cheans, and the Nestorians appeared and disappeared, 
 crumbled in their turn into dust by the rigours of an 
 Asiatic despotism. 
 
 The fate of the schism of Photius, of the Greek 
 Church, since its separation from the See of Peter, is 
 well kno.wn throughout Christendom. 
 
 Its condition might be styled Byzantinism, whereby 
 we designate at the same time a society without civil 
 liberty and an ecclesiastical body without expansion. 
 
264 The Reformation in co7t?zedion with 
 
 The Russian Church of to-day, under the Iron heel of 
 the Czar, and the Church in Greece, nominally under 
 the jurisdiction of the Patriarch of Constantinople, 
 are both practically at the mercy of their respective 
 sovereigns, and are as purely national and creatures 
 of the State as the existing Establishment in Eng- 
 land. The other portions of the Greek Church to be 
 found in the dominions of the Sultan of Turkey can- 
 not be considered as the pioneers or champions of 
 civil liberty, though less ground down by the secular 
 power than their brethren in Greece and Russia. 
 
 Those portions of the Greek and Armenian Churches 
 that are in communion with the See of Peter are alone 
 able to resist successfully the encroachments of the 
 State, and stand out in noble contrast to those around 
 them. 
 
 When Charlemagne laid the foundations of the 
 Holy Roman Empire of Teutonic race, he was 
 crowned by the Sovereign Pontiff, and undertook 
 the responsibility of the maintenance of civil liberty 
 throughout the West, which was at that epoch per- 
 petually threatened by the invasion of new hordes of 
 barbarians and the ravages of neighbouring tribes. 
 Under the feeble successors of that great Emperor 
 civil authority was threatened with a new series of 
 
the Development of Civil Liberties, 265 
 
 dangers, produced by the abuses of the feudal system^ 
 political anarchy, and serfage in all its debasing forms, 
 suggesting the right of the strong to oppress the 
 weak, and without the Catholic Church, civil liberty 
 would have been completely annihilated. After this 
 followed the communal era : and amongst the first 
 protectors of communal freedom we find a Pope 
 (Alexander IL). It was the Church of Rome that 
 opposed the Caesarism of the German Sovereigns 
 when they attempted to transplant into Europe the 
 laws, customs, and morals of Constantinople. 
 
 Without the faithfulness of the Catholic hierarchy, 
 without the indomitable energy of the bishops and 
 monks, and without the supreme resistance of the 
 successors of St. Peter, such as that of Gregory VI L, 
 Innocent III., Boniface VIII., and many more, the 
 coalition of the partisans of Csesarism in the Middle 
 Ages would have been triumphant throughout the 
 length and breadth of the Empire. 
 
 On the failure of Teutonic Caesarism in the thir- 
 teenth century, the cause was taken up by the jurists 
 and men of letters. In order to realize the im- 
 mense danger of such a line of action for the civil 
 liberty of Europe, it suffices to read the consultations 
 of the Bolognese doctors who were brought to the 
 
266 The Reformation in connectio7i with 
 
 Diet of Roncaglia by Frederic Barbarossa, and the 
 civil code written bv Peter Desvisrnes for Frederick II. 
 at Naples. 
 
 The maternal solicitude of the Roman Church again 
 delivered Christendom from these fresh dangers. 
 
 When the partial success of Protestantism had 
 broken up the moral unity of the great Christian 
 republic, the principle admitted in the empire as to 
 the distinction of the two powers had no further de- 
 fence than the personal or hereditary power of the 
 House of Hapsburg. The Church, however, per- 
 sisted in her immutability, and to her protection do 
 we owe our preservation from the decline with which 
 the Pagan materialism of the Renaissance, the des- 
 potism of the Protestant princes, the rigorism of the 
 Jansenists, and the invasions of the Turks threatened 
 the whole continent of Europe. 
 
 But though Europe did not entirely escape the deep 
 wounds of the troublous era of the sixteenth century, 
 and though it had to witness the corruption of a large 
 number of salutary civil institutions (the fruit of the 
 Middle Ages), and though it had to see the re-intro- 
 duction of the theories and practices of the Imperial 
 Roman law, our Catholic ancestors were able, owing 
 to the firm attitude of the Church, to discover a modus 
 
the Development of Civil Liberties. 267 
 
 Vivendi which prevented them from descending to the 
 low moral standard of such countries as Sweden, 
 Norway, Denmark, Prussia, and Scotland. 
 
 The Turks do not appear to us in this the close 
 of the nineteenth century in the light of formidable 
 adversaries, but the case was very different with our 
 forefathers at the time they added to the suffrages of 
 the Litanies the following invocation : '' From the fury 
 of the Turks deliver us, O Lord;" but we can judge- 
 from Africa, Asia, and the Balkan peninsula of the 
 nefarious consequences that arose from the political 
 greatness of the Osmanlis with reference to the civil 
 liberty of the peoples they conquered, and what power 
 it was that sheltered Europe from the effects of this 
 corrosive influence. 
 
 In the year 732 a Catholic army under the com- 
 mand of a Frank chief, Charles Martel, arrested the 
 march of the Mussulman at Poictiers. 
 
 For seven centuries the Catholics of Spain, as we 
 have already mentioned in a former chapter, dis- 
 tinguished themselves in the defence of civil liberty 
 by combating the Mahometans that were established 
 in their country. The victory of Lepanto was owing 
 to St. Pius v., " and it was the Catholic people of 
 Austria, the line of the Hapsburgs, John Sobieski and 
 
268 The Reformation i7i co7inection with 
 
 the Poles who forced the Turks to halt on the Danube, 
 and saved Northern Europe from the fate of Her- 
 zegovina and Bosnia in the present day. 
 
 The mention of Poland leads to a slight digression. 
 The civil liberties, the secular institutions, the inde- 
 pendence of the religion, and even the name of this 
 unfortunate country were wrested from it in a time 
 of peace by a coalition headed by Lutherans and 
 schismatics. Harris, afterwards the first Lord Malmes- 
 bury, who witnessed this international crime, having 
 given an account of it to his Government, received 
 the following laconic reply from Lord Suffolk, the 
 Minister of Foreign Affairs : " It is a curious trans- 
 action." One man alone in Europe protested ; that 
 man was the Pope. '' Ubi Petrus, ibi liber tas'' — 
 " Where the Pope is, there is liberty." 
 
 We have sketched the outlines of the picture of the 
 ruin caused by Protestantism in civil society, and we 
 might now add that of the noble resistance made 
 by the Roman Church to the excesses of modern 
 Cassarism, with its accompanying and diversified errors 
 of Gallicanism, Josephism, Sans-culottism, and Bona- 
 partism. The greatest despot of our times met with 
 only two invincible forces that resisted him, the 
 Catholic Spaniards and Pope Pius VH. 
 
the Development of Civil Liberties. 269 
 
 Modern liberalism, the C^sarism of the nineteenth 
 century, is confronted by only one insurmountable 
 object, the immovable rock of the Catholic Church, 
 which will triumph in the end over this form of error 
 as it has done over every other. 
 
 We do not propose to enter into the development 
 of this subject, which would carry us beyond the limits 
 of this work, but, after having accumulated facts and 
 proofs, we must be permitted to close the discussion 
 by an assertion which is being at the present moment 
 visibly demonstrated by passing events in Germany, 
 in Switzerland, and other countries. Anti-Catholic 
 liberalism threatens the civil liberty of modern 
 Europe with an immense danger, against which there 
 is no remedy save in the practice of the Catholic 
 religion. If our opponents were to read attentively 
 the encyclical letters Mirari vos and Qiiaiita curay 
 they would find in them nothing that sincere reason 
 could reject. 
 
 Either the whole structure of Christianity is false 
 or these encyclicals are the expression of supreme 
 truth.^ Let them detach from them the ancient style 
 of the Pontifical Chancellery, as people are willing 
 
 * See an article of great power, entitled " The Future of 
 Faith," by W. H. Mallock, " Contemporary Review." 
 
270 The Re/ormaiion in connection with 
 
 enough to do in the case of a decree emanating from 
 one of the ancient courts of England ; let them place 
 themselves on the ground of absolute right (the only 
 one which the Pope considers) ; let them remember 
 that the Pope, when he treats of such subjects, speaks 
 for all centuries ; let them consider the contemporary 
 errors which have called forth these doctrinal de- 
 cisions ; let them read over the details, and reflect 
 seriously and humbly, as an attentive, instructed, 
 and learned mind should reflect in every circum- 
 stance of life, and then come to an impartial conclu- 
 sion. 
 
 The Popes of our time, in pronouncing doctrinal 
 judgments, which ignorance or hatred disfigures and 
 distorts ; in defining, with the authority attached to 
 the science of the Church of Christ, now eighteen 
 hundred years old, the absolute conditions of Chris- 
 tian truth in its relations with civil and political law — 
 the Popes of our time in thus acting have rendered to 
 our era a service which will draw down upon them the 
 blessings of posterity. 
 
 We are aware that persons exist who claim to make 
 capital out of these judgments, admirable as they are 
 for wisdom and a clear insight into the human mind, 
 and we are aware that under the veil of certain reli- 
 
the Development of Civil Liberties, 271 
 
 glous appearances deception, the narrow-mindedness 
 of party spirit, and the pride of men who forget that 
 faith is the gift of God are often concealed. 
 
 We are aware of the maledictions uttered against 
 everything good by a class of malcontents who would 
 have held the same language in the time of St. Francis 
 of Assisi and St. Dominic, but nothing that we can 
 see or hear can prevent us from admiring the resplen- 
 dent light which the Church sheds forth on all sides. 
 Those who cannot see this light must indeed be 
 smitten with judicial blindness. 
 
 " Ubi Petrus, ibi libertas " — " Where the Pope is, 
 there is liberty." Political absolutism is contrary to 
 the essence of the Church. The history of the present 
 period would suffice to prove that Catholics suffer 
 revolutions, but do not create them. Wherever des- 
 potism and revolution have prevailed it is the liberals 
 who have reaped the fruits, even if they have not been 
 the authors, on the pretext that Catholics were sedi- 
 tious. Nero beheaded St. Paul and crucified St. Peter, 
 declaring that they had provoked civil war in the 
 empire. There is an excellent fable entitled ''The 
 Wolf and the Sheep," in which the same dialectic is 
 made use of. 
 
 Biblical and philosophical rationalism took their 
 
272 The Refor77iatio7i in connection with 
 
 rise in Protestant Prussia. Renan is at least a 
 disciple of Strauss, and this filiation is not only a 
 thing of our day. 
 
 In our estimation a perfect civil society would be 
 that wherein the Catholic religion should be sincerely 
 put in practice by all its members. Proclus used to 
 say : " The philosopher does not bind himself to such 
 and such a national form of worship ; he is alien to 
 no particular form, because he is the high priest of 
 the universe." The prefect Symmachus said : "What 
 does it signify by what road we arrive at truth } It is 
 a thing so mysterious that there must be many roads 
 leading to it." It is evident that if civil society is to 
 be moulded upon subjectivism, it must tend, as far as 
 politics are concerned, to the anarchy of M. Proudhon. 
 The civil society which would take the Catholic re- 
 ligion for its model does not submit to an absolute 
 human authority. 
 
 The Pontifical authority in the Church is no more 
 than that of the father in the family. These two 
 authorities — the one natural, the other spiritual — are 
 tempered, the first by love and by the civil law, the 
 second by the grace of God and the constitution of 
 the Church. Since the influence naturally exercised 
 by the dominant worship of a people upon the form 
 
the Development of Civil Liberties. 273 
 
 of civil society is great, great religious care is necessary 
 for a Catholic to maintain the necessary distinction of 
 the two powers. The analogy between the form of the 
 religious society and the form of the civil society is 
 not necessary ; for the source of the two societies is dif- 
 ferent, and this difference is the religious guarantee of 
 civil liberty. 
 
 The form of religious society is divine, and deter- 
 mined by the will of its Divine Founder, but the form 
 of civil society (aristocracy, democracy, monarchy, 
 &c.) is of human origin. St. Thomas, whom modern 
 liberals would probably style an Ultramontane, looked 
 upon monarchy, tempered by aristocracy and de- 
 mocracy, as the most desirable form of government, 
 whilst Bossuet, the leading character of the Gallican 
 school, was absolutist in politics. 
 
 Since the conversion of Constantine, and more 
 recently since the coronation of Charlemagne as 
 temporal head of the Christian republic, civil society, 
 under the maternal nurture of the Church, had fol- 
 lowed a development which the false ideas of the 
 Renaissance and the Protestant revolution of the 
 sixteenth century have ruined. Since the sixteenth 
 century European society has been morally broken 
 up, and the institutions of centuries, which the people 
 
 T 
 
2 74 The Reformation in con7iection with 
 
 had gradually and with great difficulty obtained, have 
 had no further development ; they have, on the con- 
 trary, become corrupted, have fallen into disuse, or 
 have been wrested with violence from the people. 
 
 All this is the work of the Renaissance and the 
 Reformation. The French revolution of 1789, in 
 substituting pure rationalism for the subjective form 
 of Christianity that the sixteenth century had pro- 
 duced, was no innovator, but it gave to the revolution 
 of the Reformation an application much more dan- 
 gerous to Protestantism than to Catholicism. Pro- 
 testant governments had from the sixteenth century 
 suppressed the civil liberties of Catholics, whereas the 
 French revolution professed, at least in theory, to 
 give freedom to every form of worship. The positive 
 consequences have been, renewed life and vigour 
 amongst Catholics and a corresponding decline and 
 weakening amongst the official Protestant sects. 
 
 Without the aid of the secular arm all forms of 
 Protestantism based upon the subjectivism of indi- 
 vidual reason must crumble away into atoms, whilst 
 the great Universal Church can not only dispense with 
 the support of governments, but can, if need be, 
 return to the catacombs, and assume the same atti- 
 tude as she did in the first ages of the Church. The 
 
the Development of Civil Liberties. 275 
 
 more she is persecuted the more will she become 
 strengthened. ^^ Sanguis rnartyrum semen CJiristiano- 
 rum'' — "The blood of martyrs is the seed of the 
 Church," and this truth has become an acknowledged 
 fact in history. 
 
 Many persons are fully persuaded that we cCre ap- 
 proaching a condition of things in religion very much 
 .akin to that of the fourth century, but the greater the 
 trials and difficulties of the Church the more certain 
 are we of her eventual triumph. 
 
 Christ's promise cannot fail, *' Lo, I am with you 
 always, even unto the consummation of time;" and 
 Catholics are perfectly content to endure whatever 
 sufferings and persecution their Lord thinks it neces- 
 sary for the Church to undergo, in order that " she 
 may become bright and clean, without spot or blemish 
 or any such thing." The adversaries of the Church 
 imagine, in their ignorance and hatred, that since she 
 does not admit a faith that is purely individual and 
 subjective, she must finally be destroyed: they imagine 
 that, like a human institution, as soon as she is de- 
 prived of her political prerogatives and earthly sup- 
 port, and left without temporal means of defence 
 against the attacks of unbelievers, she must suc- 
 <cumb. 
 
276 The Reformation in connection with 
 
 They are already beginning to see they were mis- 
 taken. The Church has shone with a new lustre 
 precisely in those countries of England, America, Ger- 
 many, and Switzerland where everything that human 
 means could devise had been put in force against her. 
 They are themselves alarmed at the progress she has 
 made. 
 
 The Catholics in the beginning of the present century 
 stood as one to every two hundred of the whole popu- 
 lation of the American Republic. The ratio of Catho- 
 lics now is one to six or seven of the inhabitants ; and 
 before the end of this century the assertion has fre- 
 quently been made, that they will outnumber all 
 other believers in Christianity throughout the States. 
 Such an assertion is no fanciful statement, but one 
 based on a careful study of statistics. 
 
 The spirit, the tendencies, and the form of political 
 government inherited by the people of the United 
 States are strongly Saxon, yet there are no better 
 citizens and no more intelligent and devoted subjects 
 in the Republic than the seven millions of Catholics. 
 Catholicism is the only persistently progressive reli- 
 gious element in the States. 
 
 That the Catholic Church flourishes wherever there 
 is honest freedom, and wherever human nature has its 
 
the Develop7nent of Civil Liberties. 277 
 
 full share of liberty, is a fact that must be recognized 
 by those who have observed the course of events in 
 England and the United States of America during 
 this century. 
 
 The Greek idea that the State was the emanation 
 of whatever exists in the nation of wisdom, light, and 
 virtue, and consequently a civilizing agent, a modern 
 instrument of progress, is the idea which modern 
 liberals declare produced the immortal grandeur of 
 Athens and the extraordinary fortune of Prussia. 
 God's will, according to the Apostle St. Peter,^ 
 is : — 
 
 " Be ye subject therefore to every human creature for God's 
 sake, whether it be to the king as excelHng ; or to governors as 
 sent by him for the punishment of evil-doers and the praise of 
 them that do well, for so is the will of God that by doing well 
 you may put to silence the ignorance of foolish men : as free and 
 not as making liberty a cloak for malice, but as the servants of 
 God. Honour all men. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. 
 Honour the king." 
 
 Historical Protestantism has shown itself incapable 
 of carrying out the Divine maxims, and has been in- 
 capable of maintaining civil liberty. Without the aid 
 of the secular arm it cannot even maintain itself as a 
 general form of worship. Anti-Catholic or non-Catholic 
 
 ' I St Epistle of St. Peter, chap, ii., verses 13 to 17. 
 
278 The Reformation and Civil Liberties, 
 
 civil liberty, such as the modern continental school of 
 liberals are endeavouring to organize in the present 
 day, will be as impotent as that which has gone be- 
 fore to stem the progress of the Universal Church. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 E read in the old missals of the Paris 
 Liturgy, in the Introit of the Mass for 
 Christmas Eve, the following passage : — 
 
 " Yet a little while and I shall shake the heavens, and the 
 earth, and the sea, and the whole universe ; I shall shake all the 
 nations, and the Desired of all nations shall appear. Listen to 
 this, ye peoples ! Be attentive, O ye inhabitants of the earth." 
 
 The Jewish doctors, the learned and literary people 
 of the time of Herod, were well acquainted with these 
 words of Scripture, but they were indifferent to the 
 great fact which took place in Bethlehem of Judaea. 
 
 The great men of the empire, with Caesar at their 
 head, had been warned by the Sibyl, but in vain. A 
 few herdsmen of Judaea, a few fishermen of Galilee 
 were more clear-sighted. 
 
28o Conclusion. 
 
 It was in the presence of a few shepherds assisting 
 at the incarnation of the Light of the World — the 
 greatest fact of the history of humanity — that the angels 
 sang the following canticle, "Gloria in excelsis Deo, et 
 in terra pax hominibiis bonce voluntatis'' "■ Glory to God 
 in the highest, on earth peace to men of goodwill." 
 
 Let us frequently repeat it, and be thankful for the 
 grace of Christian light ; but let us not be proud, since 
 that light comes to us not from ourselves but from on 
 high. 
 
 Montesquieu, who had not seen it in his youth, 
 made towards the end of his career, in the principal 
 production of his science, matured by time and con- 
 densed by reflection, the following avowal : — 
 
 " An admirable thing is the Christian religion : it seems to have 
 no other end in view than happiness in the next world, and yet 
 it constitutes happiness in the present." ' 
 
 Lord Macaulay states in disappointed tones that 
 the Catholics who become Protestants are usually 
 worthless, and the statement is decidedly correct; 
 those who possess the faith once delivered to the 
 saints remain Catholics, and those who lose it do not 
 generally consider it worth while to profess any reli- 
 gion at all. 
 
 ' ^^ Esprit des Lois" 24th, v. 3. 
 
Conclusion. 281 
 
 Catholic nations have received no promises of tem- 
 poral riches nor of constant political success, but they 
 have no cause for jealousy of other nations either in 
 old or modern times. 
 
 When they have sought the kingdom of God and 
 His justice, they know they will receive " over and 
 above," according to the Divine word, all that prudent, 
 wise, and reasonable men can desire. 
 
 The Catholic Church has been not only the foster- 
 mother of all civilization for nearly 2,000 years, not 
 only the sole depositary of Holy Writ and Christian 
 truth in their integrity, but also the pure atmosphere 
 in which human reason is preserved incorruptible and 
 unshaken. Science, letters, and art were cultivated 
 by her at a period when no one seemed to care for 
 them, and when these Divine plants were even un- 
 known by the rest of mankind. 
 
 The Catholic Church is even from a human point 
 of view the grandest and most noble institution mani- 
 fested to the world in the history of earthly things, 
 and at this day the most solid and substantial. At 
 ^v^xy period of the history of the world it has shone 
 forth resplendent by its faith and works, and its faithful 
 disciples have walked in the first ranks, not only in 
 the science of divinity but also in the human sciences. 
 
282 Cojichcsion. 
 
 Catholic nations are quite as well informed as 
 others on the importance of capital and the value of 
 labour, but they possess an admirable intermediary 
 between these two sources of riches in the inexhaus- 
 tible treasury of the Church, and if the economical 
 development of our day is capable of being retained 
 within bounds, certainly it will not find salvation else- 
 where than in the bosom of the Church. 
 
 From St. Paul to St. Augustine, from St. Gregory 
 of Nazianum to St. Thomas of Aquin, from Dante to 
 Petrarch, from Roger Bacon to Corneille, from Des- 
 cartes to Malebranche, from Bossuet to Chateaubriand, 
 from Balmez to Newman, and from Lamartine to 
 the ardent and noble youth that fill our schools^ 
 Catholic nations, invariable in the unity of their faith, 
 have walked with firm and unerring step towards the 
 conquest of the secrets of nature and created beauty. 
 
 Let their opponents rival them if they can, let 
 them mount up the scale of human knowledge with 
 them, let them multiply the applications of steam 
 and electricity, let them analyze the properties of 
 heat and explain the laws of light and penetrate the 
 mystery of the composition of the sun. 
 
 They must go higher still. 
 
 Let them contemplate the unfathomable depths of 
 
Conclusion. 285. 
 
 created space, and assist at the apparition (in our 
 celestial sphere) of bodies whose light has travelled 
 with prodigious rapidity towards it since the com- 
 mencement of the world. 
 
 They must still go higher. 
 
 Let them resist if they can the admirable concert 
 (called by the name of harmony) of the celestial 
 bodies that bewilder our imagination. 
 
 Let them mount to those indefinite but created 
 heights wherein is the region of fixed stars that ap- 
 proach the infinite. And when they have become 
 wearied by study and rendered prostrate by the con- 
 templation of these dazzling wonders, the Catholic 
 may still cry, " Excelsior." 
 
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